FORT WORTH, Texas • Tony Stewart figures he has no need to issue any more verbal jabs in the fight for the Sprint Cup title.
Stewart raced to his second consecutive victory and won for the fourth time in eight NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup races, finishing just ahead of points leader Carl Edwards in the "Texas Title Fight," which lived up to its billing Sunday.
"I'm pretty sure what we did on the race track said everything we needed to tell him today," Stewart said. "The funny thing, I don't feel like I have to say anything. I feel like I've already got it done."
After winning last week at Martinsville, Va., Stewart got out of his car in Victory Lane and said Edwards "better be worried. That's all I'm saying."
It appears to be a two-driver battle for the championship with two races left after they finished 1-2 at the 1½-mile, high-banked Texas track.
Stewart is focused winning his third Cup championship and becoming the first person not named Jimmie Johnson to win the title since 2005 — when Stewart won while driving for Joe Gibbs Racing before becoming a driver-owner.
"I mean we are set on it, man," Stewart said. "This is just the way it's going to be."
Stewart cut his points deficit from eight to three with an average speed of 152.705 mph, the fastest Cup race at Texas, and a 1.092-second margin over Edwards, the Roush Fenway driver going for his first championship.
"He's calmed down a little bit this week. It didn't slow him down any," said Edwards, the points leader for the fifth straight week. "I hope this roll doesn't last much longer, otherwise this is going to be really tough."
The series returns next week to Phoenix, where the track has been reconfigured and resurfaced since Stewart was seventh and Edwards 28th there in February in the second race this season, and then to Homestead-Miami Speedway for the finale. Edwards won both races at the end of last season.
Stewart led seven times Sunday for a race-high 173 of 334 laps, and stayed ahead of Edwards down the stretch.
When Stewart came down pit road after the race, Edwards stuck his head in Stewart's car and shared a few words with his closest competitor.
"I just told him, 'Good job.' He did a great job today. Those guys stepped it up," Edwards said. "I'm proud of my guys for hanging on and still having the points lead. It looks like it's truly going to come down to Tony and I, and that's going to be a lot of fun."
Kyle Busch officially was eliminated from championship contention while watching his No. 18 Toyota from atop the pit box. He's 100 points back with two races left. Michael McDowell drove the Joe Gibbs-owned car and finished 33rd, three laps behind the leaders. Busch was parked by NASCAR — a rarely used penalty he couldn't appeal — for the Cup and Nationwide races after deliberately wrecking championship contender Ron Hornaday Jr. in the truck series race Friday night. Five-time champion Johnson moved closer to the end of his unprecedented championship run when he finished 14th. He remained sixth in points, 55 back.
Kevin Harvick remained third in the standings, 33 points behind Edwards.
