Trevor Bayne won Daytona 500, but Carl Edwards is in the lead

Carl Edwards came up a few feet short of passing Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne and capturing NASCAR’s premier race Sunday, but Edwards nonetheless remains on a roll that could lead to his first Cup title.

Lurking behind the leaders for much of the race — mainly to avoid the crashes that took out several of NASCAR’s other top drivers — Edwards and his No. 99 Ford came on like a rocket in the final lap, with a strong push from fellow Ford driver David Gilliland.

But despite pulling up to Bayne’s rear bumper, Edwards couldn’t get around the 20-year-old and had to settle for second place in the season opener of the 36-race NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

“All day we waited and waited, tried not to tear up the race car,” said Edwards, who drives for Roush Fenway Racing. “Trevor, he did a good job of blocking the bottom” of the track.

Even so, Edwards left Daytona as the early leader in the Cup standings because Bayne wasn’t eligible to collect championship points for his win — he is driving only a limited number of Cup races and mainly competes in NASCAR’s second-tier Nationwide Series.

Edwards, 31, is carrying over the momentum he was building late in 2010, when he won the last two races in Phoenix and Homestead-Miami in Florida. And the Cup series returns to Phoenix next Sunday for its second race of the season.

“We got a win, a win and a second,” Edwards said of his last three races. “That’s a pretty good streak to be on. You never know what’s going to happen, but a couple of tracks coming up are really good for us.”

The Missourian has been on a roller-coaster ride the last three years. He won a series-high nine times in 2008 and finished second in the standings to champion Jimmie Johnson.

But then Edwards slumped badly in 2009 when he went winless and finished 11th in points. Then came the rebound last year, when he had 19 top-10 finishes and finished fourth in the Cup standings.

The question is whether Edwards can keep his momentum rolling and avert another setback.

“This season picked up . . . right where we left off [in 2010] and I’m having fun,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of positive things going on, a lot of them. Our performances have been good.”

Although Edwards acknowledged feeling the sting of coming so close but failing to become a Daytona 500 winner, he said, “I’m going to go to Phoenix next week and look at the points and think this was OK. It is nice to get out of here with a great points run.”

There was one other thing that helped ease his pain: Edwards and his team also left with the second-place prize money of $1.1 million.

james.peltz@latimes.com