Carl Edwards won't back down at Lowe's Motor Speedway
CONCORD, N.C. – Two weekends ago at Kansas Speedway, Roush Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards grabbed headlines with a botched banzai move to the inside of Jimmie Johnson for the lead on the final turn of the final lap. After completing the pass, Edwards slid up into the outside wall, allowing Johnson to move back around and take the win.
Last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, Edwards stole attention again – for wrecking Roush Fenway teammate Greg Biffle late in the race and setting off a 12-car melee that collected him and several contenders in the Chase For The Sprint Cup.
In both cases, Edwards drew criticism from some drivers for being overly aggressive, so does he plan on taking it down a notch in Saturday night’s Bank of America 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in light of the recent judgments?
Not hardly. Second in the series standings and 72 points behind Johnson with six races to go in the battle to determine the 2008 Cup championship, Edwards has more pressing matters on his mind than altering his style to win others’ favor. And winning his first series title tops the list.
“Let me explain,” Edwards said at LMS. “I go out there, and I race as hard as I can. I do everything I can, just like all these guys, and sometimes it doesn’t work out the best. Really, there are going to be people that have opinions or feel a certain way, and that’s just the way it is, and that’s OK.”
Edwards and Biffle said on Thursday that they have put the Talladega incident behind them. Both blame the wreck on Edwards unintentionally bump-drafting his teammate too far to the left of Biffle’s bumper instead of straight on.
Edwards isn’t dwelling on his incidents. His season as a whole – he has six wins and has been one of the two or three most consistent drivers throughout the campaign – has been stellar.
“I just feel like I’m a better racer and better at communicating with [crew chief] Bob [Osborne],” Edwards said. “Even though last week turned out to be a mistake, I’ve made less mistakes, and I feel like that’s helped us in the points all season – not just in the Chase, but all season. I just feel I’m a little more savvy.”
Edwards has been particularly savvy – and fast – this season and throughout his career on the 1.5-and 2-mile tracks where horsepower and aerodynamics play the biggest role in running well.
Four of his six wins in 2008 have come at such venues. Edwards therefore seems reasonably justified in believing that the 1.5-mile Charlotte track is fertile ground for getting back on track after last weekend. He opened the Chase with third-place finishes at New Hampshire and Dover, followed by a second at Kansas and a 29th at Talladega.
“This is a good place,” he said of Lowe’s Motor Speedway. “You can’t knock Jimmie [Johnson] out. He’s got some sort of magic here. It’s tough, but Greg [Biffle] was so fast in testing, and that’s the hope for all of us is that the things that Greg tested and worked for him, that we can kind of lean on that, and Bob Osborne can come up with a setup as fast.
“We’d like to have such a good run here to make up some of those points right now and not over the long haul.”
No matter how Edwards fares over the final six races, don’t expect him to drastically temper his emotions. He proved his passion again on Thursday at Charlotte when he and Richard Childress Racing’s Kevin Harvick engaged in reported shoving match stemming from comments made after the crash Edwards started at Talladega. Harvick was caught up in the fray.
“I’m just a passionate guy, and I stand up for what I think is right,” said Edwards, who declined comment about the Harvick altercation. “That’s how I am. That’s how I’ve always been, and that’s just the way I’m going to continue to be.
“That’s how I race and I stand up for myself when I believe it.”
