LDN - Sports

Rain shines on Edwards' championship parade

[November 08, 2016] By Jonathan Ingram, The Sports Xchange

Carl Edwards, known for his post-race back flips, finally got some clear air for his Toyota. And, he finally got the rain to fall at the right time.

Declared the winner at the Texas Motor Speedway when the race was ended early by rain, Edwards and his Toyota were romping away from Joey Logano's Ford prior to the precipitation after his team put him into the lead and clean air with an 11-second pit stop.

All this after his crew chief, Dave Rogers told him to leave the premises of Rogers' motor home the night before the race - because the driver had questioned one of his crew chief's decisions. They were both in pursuit of the victory needed after a blown tire at the Martinsville Speedway put the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team into a 32-point deficit coming into the second stop of the Round of 8 in NASCAR's Chase.

In the end, Rogers' mid-race chassis adjustments for a track that had been swept clean by heavy afternoon rain gave Edwards the car he needed to get to the front. Those adjustments were a bit tricky due to a start postponed by 5 and a half hours, turning a day race into a high-speed shootout at night.

The next stop for Edwards and Rogers will be Phoenix, technically, but the driver is already thinking about the Homestead-Miami Speedway, scene of the one-race showdown to determine the Sprint Cup champion in two weeks. Having arrived as a bit of a wunderkind after cutting his teeth on the dirt tracks of Missouri, Edwards is still pursuing his first championship. He won a remarkable four races his first full season in 2005 and a title seemed just around the corner. No wonder Edwards was talking about Homestead in Victory Lane to Rogers at TMS.

"This is the part that I love," said Edwards referring to the dramatic tension of being in position to win a championship. Instead of next week's race at Phoenix, Edwards is already flipping out about Homestead. Meanwhile, Rogers wants to prep for the finale by winning in Arizona. "In Victory Lane, Dave was actually trying to shut me up," said Edwards. "I started talking about Homestead already."

The sport's other dramatic tension - beyond the fact Jimmie Johnson will try to win a seventh championship at Homestead - surrounds Edwards' team at JGR. Three of his teammates are in a virtual dead heat in the points with one round remaining in Phoenix. Only two can advance at the most, assuming Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin can beat Ford driver Joey Logano and Chevy pilots Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch.

After emerging the winner while his car sat covered on the pit road - and after skipping the post-victory back flip customarily done on the front straight - Edwards said he couldn't be bothered with helping teammates at Phoenix now that he's already qualified.

Hardly an ingrate, Edwards acknowledged his teammates help make him a better driver in team owner Joe Gibbs' system of human horsepower. Perhaps with an eye on the criticism of JGR's team tactics in the postseason, Edwards is all in on the No. 19 entry fielded by Rogers for him. "Everything we do now will be geared to making sure that that Homestead weekend, we do it perfectly," said Edwards. "So, yeah, I relish the opportunity to go focus for the next 14 days on trying to give a championship effort."

If anything, Edwards gives the impression of being too nice a guy to be winning stock car races in a career that now holds a remarkable 28 victories - if only 27 back flips. He's always smiling like a horse eating sweetbrier and couldn't be more accommodating in most circumstances. He probably holds the record for handshakes and autographs among his peers. He even politely wished Tony Stewart a happy championship when the two tied in points in 2011 and Stewart won the title on the tiebreaker of most victories, a heartbreaker for Edwards.

[to top of second column]

Stewart, now in his final season before retiring from a full-time pursuit of a championship, failed to advance in this year's Chase. "I was really hoping he'd be there and I could beat him," said Edwards, his teeth gleaming. "We'd be even."

Despite the element of revenge, Edwards actually seems content about what happened in 2011."That was truly the neatest thing I've been involved with in motorsport," he said, describing his own Waterloo. "That was so much fun. You talk about buildup and focus, being able to execute. That weekend, that race, had a lot of pride in the way we dealt with that and raced. I felt like ever since that checkered flag fell, man, I just wanted that opportunity again. Now we get it. It took a couple years. But I'm ready. That was a lot of fun."

Edwards topped his incredible first full season of 2005 on the team owned by Jack Roush by winning nine races in 2008. Unfortunately, that was in the middle of Johnson's five straight Sprint Cups. Each driver won three races during the ten-race Chase, but the California driver won the title going away on points.

Can Edwards beat Johnson to the title this year? Ironically, it was Johnson that Edwards beat for his first career victory at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. Locked in a down-to-the-wire duel, the Missourian used an old dirt track trick by dusting off the high line up by the wall to find more speed. Although Johnson had led 156 laps, Edwards swooped down off the wall on the final lap to beat him.

All that's history according to Edwards - just like the rainstorm in the desert at Phoenix last year that knocked him out of the final round of the Chase. Then there was the tire that pitched a belt at Martinsville last week as Edwards was charging to the front. Instead, he came to Texas with a victory as the only way forward.

"This sport very is tough because the outcome a lot of times is not reflective of how well you did," said Edwards, who clearly handles the frustration of losing with more equilibrium than most of his peers -- or anybody else for that matter. "Like last weekend, the record books will show whatever position we finished. We actually performed very well, did a really good job.

"One of the first things my dad told my about racing," he continued, "there's a thousand ways to lose a race. Any one of those thousand things can happen. You have to have everything go well. Those disappointments like Martinsville or Phoenix last year, or 2011, that battle, that's just part of the sport. That's what makes victories and days like this and championships so special. You have to do everything right."

It was pointed out that Edwards didn't quite do everything right in Texas, having elected to skip the back flip due to the wet conditions once the race was called. It was a practical decision given the championship opportunity looming. In effect, he waited out five hours of rain in Texas during the pre-race delay to get another shot at the title after five years. He wasn't about to spoil a perfectly rainy day. But still, the lack of a back flip seemed a little wimpy.

"I'll do two in Homestead," he said.

-----------------------------------------------

Back to top