Opposites attract at LMS for Friday's Busch race

Carl Edwards can clinch the Busch Series championship on Friday night, yet he's not the most popular man in the garage this weekend in Charlotte.

As important as Edwards' finish is in retrospect to his abbreviated career, it's the green flag that has caught headlines leading up to the Dollar General 300 (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2). Jason Keller can set the all-time record for career starts at 418 if he qualifies for the race based on his speed. The start will push him past series veteran Tommy Houston.

By the time the checkered flag waves, the focus will move from Keller to Edwards -- a dramatic shift that represents the recent evolving of the Busch Series.

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Keller's a Busch driver through and through. He's made just two Cup Series starts in his career. He's never won a championship, and he's annually run for independent Busch Series teams, making his first 127 career starts for his father's team.

Edwards is a Cup driver all the way. When he made the jump from the Truck Series to Cup full time in 2005, he had more Cup starts to his credit (13) than Busch Series starts (two). That year he ran both the Busch and Cup schedules. Every start since then has been for powerful Cup owner Jack Roush, whether it be in the top series or in an affiliated Busch or Truck program.

Now he's on the verge of clinching his first NASCAR title -- although you'd never know it.

"We do have the big picture in mind, owner's points, and this is a race we can win," Edwards said.

Added crew chief Peirre Kuettel: "Lowe's is always a great track to run and our team is totally focused on getting back in the lead in the overall owner's points."

Currently their No. 60 team sits second in the owner standings, 54 points behind Richard Childress Racing's No. 29 team. But in the driver's championship, it's all Edwards as it has been since late spring. He leads second-place David Reutimann by 696 points. Should Edwards leave Lowe's Motor Speedway with a lead of 781 or more points, the title is his.

Translation: Edwards has to score 85 more points than Reutimann.

A variety of scenarios can play out for that to happen, the easiest being if Edwards wins and leads the most laps then Reutimann must finish 18th or worse for the championship race to be over.

To nobody's surprise, Reutimann would like the Chase format that is present in the Cup Series to be adopted in the Busch Series.

"If I was Carl Edwards, sitting in first, I wouldn't like it, but the last few years the Busch Series championship has been a blowout," Reutimann said. "All you ever hear about is the Chase because it is so close and unpredictable. I'd like to see that same hype in the Busch garage."

Keller, in fact, agrees.

"I think there should be some type of Chase in the Busch Series," he said. "It adds so much excitement to the Cup Series. You've got a runaway points championship now and you have for the last two years. So the excitement needs to maintain itself throughout the season, I think."

For one night, that excitement is magnified.

Edwards is trying to clinch his first title in just his third full season in the series, making just his 102nd start, his 100th driving for Roush. He's won four races this year, and 13 over the last three seasons.

But that excitement, at least until the green flag, isn't focused on Edwards. It's on the veteran with 10 career victories. It's on the 37-year-old who has twice finished second in the standings. It's on the part-timer who, the very year Edwards made his full-time Busch debut, lost his full-time ride and has raced for three different teams in the two seasons since.

It wasn't like Keller couldn't get the job done; he finished the 2005 season ranked ninth in the standings. It's just that, much like Friday's race at Charlotte will display, things changed.

"Change was made and I was the change, and that's just the way the sport is," Keller said of how the last two years have been different. "So you'd better accept it and figure out how to adapt, or they are going to throw a green flag and a checkered flag with or without me. So hopefully I can get us in a position to do that with me instead of without me."