Tony Stewart won the biggest game of winner-take-all in the history of NASCAR.

Rebounding from a succession of setbacks, Stewart took the checkered flag in Sunday’s rain-interrupted Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway to win the Sprint Cup championship in a tiebreaker over race runner-up Carl Edwards.

With four new tires to Edwards’ two — thanks to a strategic gamble that paid off when rain hit the 1.5-mile speedway for the second time on Lap 213 of 267 — Stewart gradually pulled away after a restart on Lap 231 and claimed his third Cup title, bookending the five consecutive championships won by Jimmie Johnson from 2006 to 2010. Stewart also won in 2002.

The victory was Stewart’s fifth of the season — all coming in the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup — and the 44th of his career. The bonus points for winning allowed Stewart to make up the three-point lead Edwards held with one event left. Stewart and Edwards ended the Chase tied at the top of the standings, but Stewart claimed the title with five victories this season to Edwards’ one.

Stewart, who left Joe Gibbs Racing to become co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing in 2009, became the first owner-driver to win the title since Alan Kulwicki accomplished the feat in 1992.

“We said all week, [if] we just go out and win the race, we didn’t have to worry about what he did — and that’s what we did,” Stewart said in Victory Lane, as rain pelted the winning team. “If this doesn’t go down as one of the greatest championship battles in history, I don’t know what will.”

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It was NASCAR’s dream. Punch and counterpunch — the top two drivers in the Chase for the Sprint Cup trading shots in Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.

Yes, Kasey Kahne won the race — his first victory of the season and the 12th of his career — but Edwards and Stewart dominated the action as their battle for the 2011 championship remained as close as it was at the start of the day.

In a race between the only two drivers mathematically alive for the Cup championship, Edwards finished second and Stewart third, but Stewart led the most laps for the second consecutive week and leaves Phoenix just three points behind Edwards as the drivers prepare to settle the issue in the season finale next Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“We couldn’t ask for anything more,” Edwards said. “It’s going to be fun. It’s neat to be able to go to Homestead and race it out. I’m sure these guys [Stewart's team] are going to be good down there — they’re fast on the mile-and-a-halfs.”

“We just came up two spots shy,” Stewart said. “It was just a little too loose on entry those last two runs there. I thought that Darian [crew chief Darian Grubb] made a really good call there with just gas only at the end [on Stewart's final pit stop on Lap 294], and we were able to run Jeff [Burton] down there and get back to third.

Stewart said the formula for winning the title is simple.

“Just keep doing what we’re doing,” Stewart said. “We’re going to keep the pressure on him, and we’re going to make him sweat it out.”

Kahne pitted early during a late cycle of green-flag stops and took the lead on Lap 299 of 312 when Keselowski came to pit road. Edwards chased him for the final 14 circuits but finished .802 seconds behind.

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Tony Stewart passed Jimmie Johnson on a restart with three laps left in Sunday’s Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway and held off Johnson’s desperate bid for the win on the final lap.

The victory was Stewart’s third in the Chase for the Sprint Cup and vaulted him into second place in the standings, eight points behind leader Carl Edwards. Stewart won for the 42nd time in his career.

“He’d better be worried,” Stewart said of Edwards after the race. “That’s all I can say. He’s not going to have an easy three weeks.”

Stewart brought his car to the pits under caution on Lap 416, thinking he might have a flat tire from contact with Harvick’s Chevrolet after a Lap 413 restart. Stewart was 21st when the field took the green flag on Lap 420, but a two-tire call during a caution on Lap 459 got the No. 14 Chevrolet off pit road in the fifth position for a restart on Lap 463.

By the time Brian Vickers wrecked for the fifth time to bring out the 18th and final caution — three short of the track record — Stewart had worked his way to second in time for the three-lap run to the finish.

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Clint Bowyer surged past Richard Childress Racing teammate Jeff Burton through the tri-oval on the final lap at Talladega Superspeedway to win Sunday’s Good Sam Club 500.

On a two-lap run to the finish that followed the ninth caution of the race, Bowyer, the defending winner of the race, pushed Burton to a lead of more than 20 car lengths over the pack that was chasing them. That gave Bowyer the luxury of a slingshot move past Burton in the tri-oval.  Bowyer nosed ahead 1,200 feet from the finish line and held on?barely.

Bowyer realized he was taking his shot early but decided to seize the moment when Burton gave him the inside line.

A six-car wreck on Lap 104 did major damage to the Chase chances of Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch. As the lead pack of cars sped through the tri-oval, a push from Marcos Ambrose turned Richard Petty Motorsports teammate AJ Allmendinger, triggering a crash that crumpled the hood of Harvick’s Chevrolet and knocked in the driver’s side of Busch’s Toyota.

Harvick lost two laps during multiple pit stops to repair his car, and Busch spent 11 laps in the garage before bringing his hobbled car back on the track on Lap 118. Later black-flagged because his car leaking oil, Harvick finished 32nd, nine laps down and fell to fifth in the standings, 26 points behind Edwards.

The driver of the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford was delighted to win Saturday night’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway with new sponsor Fluidmaster on his car — make that with any sponsor on Matt Kenseth’s car.

In a race that saw five-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson suffer a Chase-changing accident in the final 20 laps, Matt Kenseth pulled away from Kyle Busch and teammate Carl Edwards during a 12-lap run to the finish and notched his third victory of the season and the 21st of his career.

Kenseth climbed to third in the Chase for the Sprint Cup standings halfway through NASCAR’s 10-race playoff in an event that was as much an audition as a triumph for the 2003 Cup champion. With Crown Royal leaving as primary sponsor of his car after the current season, Kenseth needs financial backing for next year.

That’s why he didn’t mind the puns about Fluidmaster, which makes systems designed to conserve water when toilets are flushed.

“After all the toilet jokes about my restarts, we finally got a good one today,” said Kenseth, who got the jump on Busch on the last restart of the race, on Lap 323 of 334. “Thankfully, we got a good one there at the end.

“Crown Royal — it’s not too late to come back. We don’t have any sponsors for next year, so this should be a good audition. And Fluidmaster for being on this week — it was a great night for us.”

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After climbing from his winning car Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Tony Stewart made the understatement of the year.

“We’ve got a shot at this thing,” said Stewart, who by taking the checkered flag in the Sylvania 300 became the second driver to win the first two races in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

In a dramatic reversal of fortune, Stewart won the race — and grabbed a seven-point lead in the Cup standings over 12th-place finisher Kevin Harvick — when Clint Bowyer ran out of fuel with fewer than three laps to go.

“If that’s not a flip-flop from last year, I don’t know what is,” Stewart radioed to crew chief Darian Grubb after crossing the finish line.

With his second consecutive victory, his second of the season and the 41st of his career, Stewart has more than a shot at the title. The 2002 and 2005 Cup champion, who downplayed his own chances entering NASCAR’s 10-race playoff, now has to be considered the favorite.

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Tony Stewart is winless no more.

Stewart, who four days ago minimized his chances for a third Sprint Cup title, outlasted the field in Monday’s rain-delayed Geico 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.

Saving fuel during a 49-lap green-flag run to the finish, Stewart crossed the stripe .941 seconds ahead of hard-charging Kevin Harvick to win his first race of the season and the 40th of his career.

Matt Kenseth took the lead from Martin Truex Jr. on Lap 228 of 267, 10 laps after a restart forced by the sixth caution of the race, for debris. Stewart passed Kenseth for the top spot through Turns 3 and 4 on Lap 238, with Kenseth needing to save fuel and not contesting the position.

Though Stewart briefly surrendered the lead to Truex in the closing laps, the No. 14 team wasn’t worried, because Truex couldn’t go the distance and had to pit for fuel.

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As far as the Chase was concerned, nothing changed during Kevin Harvick’s victory in Saturday night’s Wonderful Pistachios 400 at Richmond International Raceway — but what happened between the green flag and the checkered flag was astounding.

It featured a solid job from Stewart, who stayed out of trouble to qualify for the Chase for the seventh time.

It saw a renewal of the Kurt Busch-Jimmie Johnson rivalry, as the drivers took turns knocking each other into the Turn 2 wall. Busch got the better of the exchange by far, coming home fifth to Johnson’s 31st.

The race was not yet eight laps old when a massive pileup in Turn 3 sent shock waves through the brains of some of the most notable Chase hopefuls.

Racing side-by-side with pole-sitter David Reutimann, Clint Bowyer spun and stacked up the field behind him. Earnhardt’s Chevrolet plowed into Bowyer’s, and Hamlin, trying to protect his wild-card spot, slammed hard into the outside wall.

But in the end, Harvick beat Jeff Gordon out of the pits after a stop under caution on Lap 385 of 400 and drove away from the four-time champion. Carl Edwards passed Gordon for the second spot and challenged Harvick for the win, but Edwards ran out of time, finishing .139 seconds back.

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Brad Keselowski’s phoenix-like rise from the ashes continued Saturday, with an improbable victory in the Irwin Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway — his third win of the season and his second since breaking his left ankle Aug. 3 in a crash during testing at Road Atlanta.

Keselowski grabbed the lead on a restart with 80 laps left in the 500-lap Sprint Cup race and held on to win for the fourth time in his career. The victory all but assured Keselowski of at least a wild-card position in the upcoming Chase.

“Wow — the night race at Bristol!” Keselowski exclaimed after exiting his car in Victory Lane, his broken ankle forgotten. “I used to watch Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt win this race. This is a race of champions. I can’t believe it. There’s races that pay more. There’s races that might have a little more prestige, but this is the coolest damn one of them all.”

Since Keselowski broke his ankle, he has finished first at Pocono, second at Watkins Glen, third at Michigan and first at Bristol.

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Michigan finally unrolled the welcome mat for Kyle Busch, the first official member of the 2011 Chase.

Busch got his first Sprint Cup Series victory at Michigan International Speedway in his 14th start at the two-mile track, holding off Jimmie Johnson in a green-white-checkered finish to win Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400.

“It’s awesome,” Busch said. “That’s what we wanted. We wanted to make sure that we could come out here and win races and have the opportunity to go for broke.”

Busch clinched his berth in the Chase by virtue of the fourth win, which guarantees him at least a wild-card berth in NASCAR’s 10-race playoff.

Johnson chose the outside lane for a restart on Lap 173 and used the clean air to his advantage, pulling away to a lead of more than a second before Busch began to cut into his advantage. On Lap 188, Busch cleared Johnson into Turn 1 with what turned out to be the winning pass.

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