Carl Edwards does a backflip off the side of his car after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series auto race Sunday, March 6, 2011, in Las Vegas.

LAS VEGAS — Carl Edwards was anointed the 2009 championship favorite when he closed the previous season with three wins in the final four races.

Then he failed to reach Victory Lane the next year and never even challenged for the Sprint Cup title.

So when he won the final two races of last year, he begged off all the prognosticators who once again wanted to make him the popular pick to unseat five-time champion Jimmie Johnson.

But with three strong runs to open this season, including Sunday’s victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Edwards can’t really dodge the championship talk. Team owner Jack Roush did it for him.

“It’s way too early for us to start thinking championship,” Roush cautioned. “We’ve got to keep our eye on the ball. We can’t make a misstep. We can’t squander the opportunities now that we’re running better than we did last year. But it certainly feels more like 2008, even better.”

Edwards, though, knew it took “a gift” from Tony Stewart to grab his first win of the season.

Stewart had the dominant car at Las Vegas, leading a race-high 163 laps. But he had to shuffle his strategy when a penalty on pit road crippled his chances. Edwards crew chief Bob Osborne took note of what Stewart was doing, then used it to get his own driver into Victory Lane.

“That car was spectacular. He did a really good job driving it, too,” Edwards said of Stewart. “That was really a gift for us for him to have that penalty. It may have been the difference in the race there.”

Stewart was the leader when he was penalized for leaving his pit stall with the air hose still attached to his Chevrolet. Crew chief Darian Grubb had to call for a two-tire stop to get Stewart back into the lead, the entire field saw it work, and Stewart was backed into a corner.

He had to take four tires on his final stop, most everyone else took two, and the longer time spent on pit road shuffled him too far back to make it back to the front.

Edwards, in a Roush Fenway Racing Ford, pulled away for the win, while Stewart, who dropped to 22nd after the four-tire stop, was unable to chase him down and finished second.

“We had the fastest thing on the planet today and we just gave it away,” Stewart said. “It kills me to throw away a race like that.”

That’s how Edwards felt the last two weeks.

Edwards believed he should have won the first two races of the season, and had a hard time shaking the disappointment.