Carl Edwards grabbed the lead from Kevin Harvick on pit road with 24 laps to go late Friday night and won the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Richmond, Va.

The victory finished off a remarkable race for Edwards, who had to start at the back of the field after his team made adjustments to his Ford after the field was impounded.

The work and penalty were clearly worth it as Edwards steadily worked his way into contention, first challenging Denny Hamlin for the lead with 70 laps to go.

"I thought I'd lost the race," Edwards said. "I got in deep behind Denny, he checked up a lot more than I thought he was going to, I hit him and I let off and [Harvick] got by me."

Edwards faded afterward, but when a caution for debris on the track flew on the 226th lap, the leaders all headed for pit road, and Edwards beat Harvick back onto the track.

"My guys are the ones that made this one happen, the guys in the pits," Edwards said.

Racing with a broken right foot and the most important race of the season looming last night, Edwards opted for a standard victory lap rather than his usual back-flip.

"It's not the weak link right now. It's not holding me up any and it feels good, so it shouldn't be an issue," Edwards said after using crutches to get to the media center.

Harvick finished second, followed by Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski and David Reutimann.

The victory allowed Edwards to gain 20 points on Busch in the standings, but he still trails by 201 points with eight races remaining, and Busch would have to falter badly.

For much of the race, local favorite Hamlin looked like the guy to beat, even though several bad pit stops cost him position. Once he went in as the leader and came out third, and another time he went in running second and emerged sixth, then began making up ground.

Only Edwards had a better car, especially on long green-flag runs.

On lap 202, Hamlin retook the lead and the cars continued to race side-by-side or nose-to-tail until Hamlin's Toyota wiggled in the fourth turn, causing him to nudge Harvick to keep from crashing. Harvick continued on unscathed, and Hamlin headed to pit road for tires.

"Typical here at Richmond," Harvick said of the contact.

The final caution came shortly thereafter, and that's when Edwards made his move, winning for the third time on the 0.75-mile oval, and for the 24th time in the series.

Lewis Hamilton of McLaren won the pole for the Italian Grand Prix today in Monza, and Giancarlo Fisichella will make his Ferrari debut from 14th on the grid. The defending Formula One champion set a leading lap time of 1 minute, 24.066 seconds in qualifying at the Monza circuit. Force India driver Adrian Sutil will start from a career-best second, while Kimi Raikkonen goes third for Ferrari at its home circuit and the season's fastest race.