Edwards brings down the house.

When Bruton Smith decided to completely remodel the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway two years ago he did it with a view to improving the somewhat insipid racing that had generally been the norm since NASCAR made its first trip to Sin City in 1998. By adding Homestead-style variable banking Bruton certainly achieved his aim but he also made his track a far more unforgiving proposition as evidenced in Sunday's UAW-Dodge 400.

Without question Sunday's third round of the 2008 Sprint Cup Championship saw enough side by side action to further prove that the arrival of Car of Tomorrow has not signalled the death knell for good racing and by the time the chequered flag fell for the #99 Roush-Fenway Ford of Carl Edwards at least half a dozen of the 43 starters were thankful of NASCAR's decision to favour driver safety over looks with the new generation of vehicles.

On a bright but blustery day in Nevada a sell-out crowd of 155,000 people witnessed a record number of caution periods (11) for a Cup race in Las Vegas and one of the hardest impacts they will see in this or any other season as Jeff Gordon pounded the inside retaining wall on the back straight at well over 150mph. In a crash that saw the entire radiator stripped clean off Gordon's #24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet there was an audible sigh of relief when the four-times Cup Champion emerged unaided after a fairy sickening head-on impact.

Of course the crashes were just a backdrop to a second consecutive victory for the #99 Ford of Edwards, who started second and contended for the lead right from the word go. Edwards still had to fight back from a pit road penalty dished out when a tyre rolled free and crossed the pit lane during a lap 110 round of yellow flag stops for Tony Stewart's bone-jarring turn four accident following a right front tyre failure and thanks to an over-enthusiastic member of the media it could have been a lot worse.

Edwards, running fourth at the time of the stop, dropped to 16th as a result of the penalty and had to resort to some alternate pit strategy on lap 185 with a two tyre pitstop under caution in order to move back into the top five. However once he was out of the snarling pack Edwards made quick work of his teammate Matt Kenseth and the Hendrick Chevrolet of Dale Earnhardt Jr to retake the lead on lap 194 of 267.

Edwards led comfortably as the race passed the 200-lap mark but it all nearly came unstuck for the driver who won last Monday's rain-delayed Auto Club 500 when, during the final round of stops on lap 215 another errant tyre on pit road threatened to have him moved to the tail of the lead lap runners. However NASCAR officials deemed that an encroaching film cameraman had obstructed a member of Edwards' pit crew just as the crewman tried to grab the tyre and while Edwards did lose two places in the confusion, it was much better than the alternative penalty.

Kenseth and Earnhardt Jr re-assumed the top two spots for the lap 224 restart but before Edwards could get stuck in the eighth caution period of the afternoon waved for Casey Mears' tangle with Brian Vickers. Edwards therefore had to wait until lap 226 before unleashing his frustrations and he was soon battling side by side with his teammate for the race lead, which he eventually took on lap 237.

With nothing but clear air battering the front end of his Dish Network sponsored Ford Edwards opened a two second lead as the race entered its final 30 laps but when Kurt Busch suffered a spectacular mid corner blow-out in turn four on lap 256 all Edwards' efforts counted for nought. This close to the end and nobody wanted to give up their track position for a top up of fuel and a new set of tyres and so Edwards led Earnhardt Jr, Kenseth and Gordon to the lap 262 restart desperately trying not to spin his worn rubber too badly.

While Edwards managed to make a clean getaway Earnhardt Jr did not and was quickly swamped by Kenseth and Gordon as the field headed into turn one. As Gordon tried to make ground on the low line he slid up the track coming off turn two and brushed the left rear of Kenseth's car with enough force to send the #24 Chevrolet into a half spin. Gordon's car shot across the track and slammed the inside retaining wall head-on just where there was an abutment for the safety vehicles. The car briefly became airborne as it jack-knifed around spitting the radiator out onto the back straight as it spun to a smoky halt with Gordon, groggy but conscious, still strapped into his seat.

Slowly and only after NASCAR red flagged the field in turn one, Gordon climbed from his wreckage and walked to the awaiting ambulance although he would later say in a rather shaky post race TV interview that it was the hardest crash of his career to date.

This left a two-lap sprint to the finish with Edwards once again leading Earnhardt Jr. Earnhardt Jr now had the #16 Roush-Fenway Ford of Greg Biffle directly behind him for while Kenseth survived his tap from Gordon without hitting anything solid, he was forced to pit with two flat tyres on his #17 Ford.

Earnhardt Jr knew his only chance against Edwards would be to out-drag him at the green flag but Edwards made the perfect jump and quickly pulled enough of an advantage leaving Dale Jr to fend off Biffle's attentions over the final three miles.

Edwards reeled off the final tour to secure his ninth career Cup Series win and his first back-to-back triumph. Edwards also takes over the overall championship lead for the first time in his career and can now look forward to next Sunday's race at the equally fast, equally daunting Atlanta Motor Speedway where he took a seasonal double in 2005.

Earnhardt Jr finally broke free from Biffle on the final corner and although he is still left waiting for his first win for Rick Hendrick, second place marks a good turnaround after his tribulations in California last week. Biffle maintained his and Roush-Fenway's strong start to the season with third place with Richard Childress Racing teammates Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton rounding out the top five.

David Ragan made it three Roush cars in the top six with a last gasp pass on Kasey Kahne, who fought off the effects of the flu to take seventh place from the back of the grid. Travis Kvapil put his unsponsored #28 Yates Racing Ford a highly creditable eighth with Denny Hamlin ninth in the leading Toyota and Nationwide Series winner Mark Martin tenth.

Polesitter and Las Vegas native Kyle Busch led the early stages in his #18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and continued to dispute top spot until a slow pitstop with 100 laps to go dropped him down the order. In traffic Busch's car wouldn't handle as well and after a couple of scrapes with the outside SAFER barriers Busch had to settle for eleventh place.

Juan Montoya recovered from several wall banging incidents to finish 19th while Kenseth wound up 20th after his enforced late pitstop. Jimmie Johnson's bid for a fourth straight Las Vegas win never got off the ground and after starting 33rd Johnson endured one of his worst ever races as he came home two laps down in 29th, seemingly mystified as to his cars lack of competitiveness.

Dario Franchitti also had a hard day and finished three laps behind in 33rd position while Gordon was classified 35th, Kurt Busch 38th and a very sore Tony Stewart 43rd.

Patrick Carpentier, Sam Hornish Jr and Robby Gordon were all crash victims but while Hornish and Gordon suffered tyre failures, Carpentier was left little to no room by Ryan Newman as they battled off turn two with the former Champ Car race winner ending his first race of the season against the inside wall on the back straight.

As an extremely stressful ten day west coast marathon draws to a close the Sprint Cup circus heads back across the nation to their North Carolina bases before turning south and heading for the super-fast Atlanta Motor Speedway.