Rain
shines on Edwards' championship parade
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[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."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Nov/08/images/ads/current/maskeauction_sda_022614.png)
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.
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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."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Nov/08/images/ads/current/humanesociety_sda022411.png)
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."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Nov/08/images/ads/current/ldn_more_readers_bch.png)
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.
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