Carl Edwards' rapport with crew chief Dave Rogers shows in Bristol win

— -- BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Dave Rogers stood on pit road, tired and weary but with a blunt assessment of life as crew chief for Carl Edwards:

"All I know is I'm having more fun racing than I've had in a long time," Rogers said. "It's just a pure joy to race with this guy. ... I'm having the time of my life and the results are showing."

Rogers didn't say that Sunday after Edwards won the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. He could have, but it wouldn't have rang as true.

No, Rogers said that after last week at Texas Motor Speedway, where a loose wheel forced Edwards to pit and took away a solid shot at the victory. While Edwards traditionally is upbeat and lets the compliments flow to his team after races, Rogers is typically more reserved and more blunt.

He certainly was disappointed finishing seventh last week when he had a car that started on the pole, but Rogers still had the time of his life. Life got better eight days later as Edwards led 276 of the 500 laps on the way to the win -- a seventh top-10 and fourth top-5 in eight races this year.

"I'm really, really happy with being with Dave," Edwards said. "We don't get along with everybody, but we get along with each other really well, so it's great."

Both Edwards and Rogers have had winding paths to their pairing for 2016. Edwards went through three crew chiefs in his final three years at Roush Fenway Racing. When he moved to Joe Gibbs Racing after the 2014 season, he was paired with Darian Grubb. It took them a long time to mesh, and while they finished a more-than-respectable fifth in the standings, there still seemed to be a little bit of a disconnect between them.

Rogers, meanwhile, had a crew chief career at JGR in which he went from unsuccessful Cup crew chief with Jason Leffler in 2005 to successful Xfinity Series crew chief winning the 2008 owners title to successful Cup crew chief with 15 victories. He worked with Kyle Busch from late in the 2009 season through 2014 and then Denny Hamlin in 2015. Hamlin had been wanting his longtime engineer Mike Wheeler as his Cup crew chief and after Wheeler had a four-win season in one year atop the box in the Xfinity Series, Hamlin got his wish.

That left Grubb as the odd man out as Rogers, a long-time JGR company man whose ability to manage and deliver tough love to Kyle Busch, was just too valuable not to have him guiding a team.

"I truly have never worked with someone that I think is more like me and communicates the same way as I do," Edwards said. "If we don't win the championship, it will not be because of any problem between Dave and I. It's unreal.

"And I'm not just saying this because he won this race, but he's already like a brother. It's unreal."

Maybe they get along so well because they both have won enough races to have confidence in their abilities. Maybe they have just a little bit different approach to how they do things that their styles just for some reason mesh.

What they do know is that Edwards won a race on a day when all three of his teammates had tire issues.

"I just think Carl drove a brilliant race," Rogers said. "There was plenty of times that he was running, and the 4 car [of Kevin Harvick or] someone would be tracking us down, I'd read lap times and let him know that, 'Hey, we're a tenth [of a second] off, we're a tenth off, we're a tenth off' -- and then all of a sudden he would run a tenth-and-a-half quicker to show me that the car had it and then back it down.

"Carl did a great job of managing the tires. It was just our day today, I guess."

After working with two drivers at JGR who wore their emotions more on their sleeves, Rogers appears to like the more calming in-race demeanor of Edwards. He credited that with helping have the team bounce back this week after making the mistake at Texas last week.

The pit crew, the road crew, everyone gets along so good, and Carl treats us with a lot of respect," Rogers said. "He keeps a level head when we have down days. ...

"He doesn't get too excited when we have good days like today. So that even keel just lets you perform at your best, and you're always having fun when you're performing at your best."

Just looking at his stats should show Edwards has had a lot of fun this year. His average finish of 6.4 is best in the series. His 475 laps led ranks him third behind teammate Busch (520) and Kevin Harvick (499).

Edwards led the final 104 laps Sunday, which included holding off challengers on five restarts over the final 84 laps. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second with Kurt Busch third, Chase Elliott fourth and Trevor Bayne fifth. Matt DiBenedetto finished sixth for the best finish ever for underfunded BK Racing.

"They finished sixth?" Edwards said. "Man, that's unbelievable. That's probably tougher than what we did."

It might have been. But don't discount the amount of time and effort Edwards has put into JGR, especially when trying to learn about his new crew for the second time in two years.

"I've spent more time with Dave and the guys this year and in the offseason than I ever have in my career," Edwards said. "When Dave says this is a real team effort and Coach [Joe Gibbs] says it's a team effort, it's true. ... I've had a great time getting to know Dave.

"It's really just fun to be a part of something like this, and the fact that we're running well, that's just icing on the cake."