Preseason Driver Rankings: #1 Carl Edwards

02/26/2012 By Leave a Comment


Carl Edwards
No. 99 Fastenal/Subway/Best Buy/Kellogg’s/Aflac Ford
Team: Roush Fenway Racing
Crew Chief: Bob Osborne

2011 Stats
Wins: 1
Top-5s: 19
Top-10s: 26
Poles: 3
DNF: 0
Average Start: 9.4
Average Finish: 9.3
Races Led: 25
Laps Led: 903
% Laps Completed: 97.6%
Points Finish: 2nd

2011 in a Nutshell
From the outset Carl Edwards was viewed as a genuine favorite to contend for the 2011 title. Unlike previous years, Edwards performed up to the level expected of him. As a runner-up finish at Daytona, a win at Las Vegas and another second-place finish at Bristol put the Roush Fenway driver atop the point standings, a position he would hold for 23 of 36 weeks. But in the end, Edwards’ outstanding year just wasn’t enough. In the closest points race in NASCAR history, Tony Stewart edged out Edwards on a tiebreaker to win the Sprint Cup championship.

Reasons to Believe
Edwards topped everyone last year in top-fives and top-10s … Bob Osborne doesn’t get the attention or the credit as some other crew chiefs, but there is little doubt he is one of the very best in the garage. His pairing with Edwards might the best driver-crew chief relationship in all of NASCAR … The unquestioned lead driver at Roush Fenway Racing … Despite the organization having some sponsorship holes, that isn’t a concern for the 99 who has a throng of companies backing them financially … A reduced Nationwide Series will allow Edwards to focus more on his Cup ride which should have him more energized ( as if that’s at all possible) … A smooth style behind the wheel translates well to the intermediate tracks – a point of emphasis for Roush Fenway … The Chase schedule plays strongly into Edwards’ strengths.

Reasons to Doubt
Carl Edwards isn’t particularly bad on the road courses, but he should be better … Can this team go through another season unscathed without having some sort of mechanical gremlin put their car in the garage prematurely? … With the exception of last year, Edwards has had difficulty living up to preseason expectations … How does a team as great as the 99 team was a year ago win only once? … He should be better and needs to improve on the road courses, as well as Richmond and Chicagoland … While at times he’s been very fast at Texas, he needs to be more consistent on the 1.5-mile track … The lingering disappointment of last season is a HUGE concern.

Area of Strength: Intermediate tracks
Much like his Roush Fenway Racing brethren, Carl Edwards is at his absolute best on the intermediate ovals; as evident by 13 of his 19 Cup victories having come on mile-and-a-half two-mile tracks.

Area of Weakness: Following up
Call it a hangover if you will, but the following season hasn’t been too kind recently to the driver who finished second in the championship the year before. Last season Denny Hamlin dropped nine spots in the standings and went from wining eight races to just one. The year before that, 2009 runner-up Mark Martin went winless and didn’t make the Chase. Martin’s former Hendrick teammate also went winless in 2008 the year after finishing second to Jimmie Johnson. And Edwards’ himself twice previously put-up a goose egg in the win column after having finished second in points the year prior. More than anything else, this will be the biggest question facing Edwards and his team in 2012.

Best-case Scenario For 2012
Carl Edwards repeats his magical 2011 season with two notable exceptions. First, he wins more races. Second, instead of tying for the championship, the Missouri native decisively wins the title going away.

Worst-case Scenario For 2012
Like Denny Hamlin last year, Carl Edwards’ can’t shake losing the championship in the way he did. As such, he’s in a funk for the entire season and does what he did two times prior after finishing runner-up in the standings – fails to win and essentially sleepwalks through the entire season.

In Their Words
“Last year, it bothered me after the race for a few minutes, but that’s not how I try to do things. I go out and do the best I can and I’m realist. There’s a reality in the world and the reality is we finished second, so that’s just it. I didn’t really have much trouble with that, but what I had trouble with was the waiting for this season – just sitting around with no racing, trying to get up in the morning and find constructive things to go do, because I’m ready to go race. I cannot wait to get in that race car next Sunday.”
–Carl Edwards

Predicted Number of Wins: 4

The Racing Geek’s Final Thought
As demonstrated by what he did in 2011, Carl Edwards’ has gotten significantly better at managing expectations. Therefore rising up to the challenge of being a championship contender and putting last season behind him, shouldn’t be too tough of a task. Everything about this team screams championship. Now all they have to do is turn potential into reality.

Filed Under: 2012, Edwards, NASCAR, Preseason Rankings, Sub-Feature

Reflecting On The Moment

11/23/2011 By Leave a Comment

In society we have a tendency to slap a label on something the moment anything of any consequence happens. Often the label being used involves words like “greatest ever,” the biggest disappointment,” and so forth.

Instead of letting an event marinate and allowing time to dictate its place in history, we instantly try and determine where a particular moment fits in the spectrum of record.

Too often without the proper amount of time to digest what’s transpired, our instant analysis is proved incorrect.

Now, 48 hours removed from Tony Stewart doing the unthinkable and outdueling Carl Edwards in a stirring head-to-head duel to not only win the Ford 400 but the championship, the easy thing to do is say this was the best championship-deciding race in NASCAR history.

Upon a little reflection, it very could well be. However, that proclamation will have to wait.

Just once previously had a championship battle come down to the degree it did on Sunday.

That day was of course, November 15, 1992. A race many smarter than I view as the best race in NASCAR’s rich history.

It was on that day, the super team of Bill Elliott and Junior Johnson were looking to fend off a surprising upstart from Wisconsin who went by the name of Alan Kulwicki.

As Stewart and Edwards did this past weekend, Elliott and Kulwicki were running first and second in the closing laps. But unlike this past Sunday, Kulwicki knew because he had already secured the points bonus for leading the most laps, it wasn’t paramount he win the race.

The stubborn, headstrong driver who owned his own team (sound familiar?) knew finishing second would be good enough to secure him his first Sprint Cup.

That wasn’t a luxury afforded to Stewart Sunday.

Because Edwards had led the most laps, and because the No. 99 Ford Fusion car was as good as the Chevy Stewart was wheeling, The owner-driver knew there was only one way to bring home his third series title.

Anything less than a victory would equate to a runner-up finish in the final standings. A prospect that was unacceptable to the man who had made it loud and clear to his opponent just days before that when the dust settled, it would be him walking away with the championship hardware and not the man who had been the most consistent driver throughout the season.

To talk a big game is one thing. To go out and back up your statements in the most damning way possible is entirely different thing altogether.

Stewart, through both his actions and his words, willed his team to the championship.

He twice drove through the field to get to the front after getting repairs for a damaged grille which had been punctured by a piece of debris early on. As if this adversity wasn’t enough, more hurdles were to come including a lengthier than normal pit stop due to a malfunctioning air gun, to be followed by Stewart later running out of fuel.

Yet, in a race that had far-reaching consequences like no other, there he was still in position to challenge for the race win and the championship.

With 30 laps to go, it was Stewart out in front leading Edwards, knowing that one bobble, wiggle or one corner where he simply drove it in too hard would erase everything he and his team had overcome.

When the checkered flag was rolled out and waved, Stewart not only officially claimed his 44th career win but most importantly, his third Sprint Cup title.

This triumph firmly secured Stewart’s place in an elite group which includes Lee Petty, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, David Pearson, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty, as drivers who have three or more Sprint Cup championships to their name.

Accompanied with his accomplishments in open-wheel racing, where Stewart won the IndyCar title in 1997 and notched three victories in his two-plus years, it firmly cements him as one of the most diverse and accomplished drivers in a variety of disciplines of all-time.

But instead of trying to determine Stewart’s place in history and where this race may fall in the list of great NASCAR races, let’s just sit back and enjoy.

Let’s enjoy the gritty determination Stewart showed throughout the Chase which saw him win a record five playoff races and pass a total of 118 cars Sunday.

Let’s relish the class Edwards displayed despite losing the championship in the most painful way possible. I can’t image what Edwards is going through, knowing he did everything he could in the Chase – his 4.9 average finish was a Chase record and on Sunday he started on the pole, led the most laps and finished second – yet it still wasn’t good enough to overcome Stewart.

Let’s appreciate a race which showcased everything there is to love about stock car racing at its highest-level.

Let’s respect the efforts of Stewart’s crew chief, Darian Grubb, who just five weeks prior had been told that he would be out of a job at the end of the year.

As we do all these things, let’s also let time establish the hierarchy in which we will place Stewart’s win.

Although, to be honest, when everything is said and done and the time comes to judge this race, I have a fairly good idea where I’m going to put it.

 

If you would like to contact the author of this post, simply click here, and you can also follow The Racing Geek on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of NASCAR Media/Getty Images

Filed Under: Edwards, Homestead, NASCAR, Stewart, Sub-Feature

Carl vs. Tony: A Contrast In Styles

11/19/2011 By 1 Comment

12 men started the 2011 edition of the Chase for the Sprint Cup with the goal of becoming champion. But after nine events that whittled the combatants down like contestants on an afternoon game show, we’re left with just two challengers.

Enter Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart.

In one corner you have a driver who has won races and championships in a variety of disciplines. A driver, who no matter what unfolds on Sunday, will go down as one of the best NASCAR drivers of his era.

In the other corner, you have a driver who while talented, is looking for his first championship of note. A driver who, while on the cusp of greatness, is still looking to take the next step and cement his place in NASCAR’s record book.

One driver owns his team while the other drives for one of the more powerful and well-off owners in the sport.

One represents Ford; the other has strong ties to Chevrolet. So much so he left the powerhouse Joe Gibbs Racing team because of their newfound allegiance to Toyota.

Sunday, under the Southern Florida blue skies the two will engage in the final round of their championship fight.

With a scant three points separating the two, this title isn’t going to be won by playing it safe and lagging in the middle of the pack.

To walk away with the hardware you’re going to need to run up front, and depending how the chips fall, maybe even win to secure the title.

“I truly believe this could come down to who wins this race is going to win this championship,” said Edwards yesterday during the championship contender’s press conference.

If that is the case, the odds are definitely in Stewart’s favor, as winning in the Chase is something he’s grown quite accustomed.

Since the green flag waved on the Chase, the Hoosier native has been won four times in a variety of ways.

There was the fuel-mileage win at Chicagoland, the late-race rallies at New Hampshire and Martinsville, where Stewart only led a combined 16 laps, yet still found a way to find Victory Lane, and of course the complete domination at Texas, when he led a race-high 173 laps and won by a comfortable one-second margin.

But it takes more than just winning to score a championship. It also takes consistency. And that very characteristic is why Edwards, and not Stewart, is leading the points.

“There are different approaches you can take to it,” explained Edwards, who is looking to deliver Ford it’s first driver’s title since 2004. “To be clear we haven’t gone out and said we aren’t going to try to win the race and just cruise and do our best. That is one of the things I am most proud of. We have performed very well even on the days when things didn’t stack up in our favor.”

No driver this year has scored more top-fives and top-10s than the driver who’s trying to deliver car owner Jack Roush’s third Sprint Cup title.

Not to mention, Edwards’ 9. 5 average finish makes him the only such driver to have an average finish in single digits. And through nine Chase races, Edwards worst result is an 11th at Talladega with a remarkable average finish of 5.2.

While Stewart was busy winning races in the Chase, Edwards was showcasing the consistency which has had him atop the standing 23 of 35 weeks.

While you may decry Edwards for having only one victory this season – in the third race of the year at Las Vegas – let’s not forget about those near-misses at Daytona, Bristol, Darlington, Richmond, Texas and Phoenix, all races where Edwards finished in the runner-up position.

It’s not as if Edwards is in the position he’s in based on pure luck. He’s earned it, just as much as Stewart has earned his four victories this season.

If you’re wondering who has the advantage Sunday, the scale would have to tip slightly in favor of the guy who has yet to win a championship.

In addition to being the hunted instead of the hunter, Homestead-Miami Speedway just so happens to be a place Edwards excels, having won two of the last three races here along with having six consecutive finishes of eighth or better.

It also helps that Ford has won seven of the last nine races on the 1.5-mile track

Conversely, because of the position he’s in entering the weekend, Stewart’s approach is that of someone who has nothing to lose with all the pressure squarely on Edwards’ shoulders.

If comes down to the last lap, Stewart made no secret of what he would do to win the championship.

“I’d wreck my mom to win a championship,” said a smiling Stewart.

Not surprisingly, Edwards isn’t exactly of the same mindset. Or at the very least, doesn’t want to reveal what he’s thinking publically.

“You don’t know what will happen in a race or how it will work out, said Edwards. “I am not about to tell him what I am going to do or what lengths I am willing to go to. It doesn’t help me to tell him my strategy. He has stated what he is willing to do and that is fine.

“I don’t think either of us underestimates the others resolve to win. I think that would be foolish.”

As for Stewart, who’s looking to become the first owner-driver since Alan Kulwicki to win the championship, he makes no bones about what this weekend is all about.

“I respect him as a driver, but this isn’t about friendships this weekend,” said Stewart. “This is a war. This is a battle. This is for a national championship. It’s no holds barred this weekend. I didn’t come this far to be one step away from it and let it slip away, so we’re going to go for it.

“They say there are talkers and doers. I’ve done this twice.”

 

If you would like to contact the author of this post, simply click here, and you can also follow The Racing Geek on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of NASCAR Media/Getty Images

Filed Under: Edwards, Homestead, NASCAR, Stewart, Sub-Feature

As The Title Turns In Kansas

10/11/2011 By Leave a Comment

Every battle has a turning point. That one critical moment where things either begin to turn in your favor allowing you to seize control, or turn against you causing you to regress backwards leading to eventual defeat.

While it’s still too early to tell, it’s looking as if Sunday’s running of the Hollywood Casino 400 on the mile-and-a-half Kansas Speedway is going to go down as the turning point in this year’s Chase for the Sprint Cup.

First and foremost, yesterday was a monumental day for a face we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in Victory Lane in years past, but who’s “struggled” to recapture that same success in 2011.

While the consistency that has become Jimmie Johnson’s hallmark during his five-year reign as champion has been there this year, one thing has noticeably been missing for the No. 48 Lowes team.

Wins.

Before Sunday, Johnson had been to Victory Lane just one this season, and that had came at Talladega, where luck and being in the right place at the right time is more paramount than having a fast car.

But yesterday Johnson sent a loud reverberating message to those whom dare to question whether he was going to be a player in this year’s Chase.

From the drop of the green flag, the No. 48 Lowes Chevy was on a mission. Quickly ascending from his 19th starting position to the front of the field, where he would stay throughout the afternoon. All total, Johnson flexed his muscles by leading a race-high 197 laps, and at one point was so dominant he had a lead of over 14-seconds.

“We showed today what we’re capable of when we’re all performing at the top of our game, and hopefully we can do that for six more weeks,” said Johnson following his win yesterday.

His second victory of the year moved him up to third in the standings, just four markers behind points leader Carl Edwards and made it crystal clear to everyone that the road to the championship still runs through the man who’s now won 55 Cup races in his career and has had a stranglehold on the title these last five years.

However Kansas wasn’t just a turning point for Johnson as there were others who used Kansas to make a statement.

Throughout the race Sunday, Carl Edwards was stricken with an ill-handling Ford Fusion, running mid-pack most of the day, and even was as low as 25th at one point. It was all but a certainty that he was going to take a big hit in the points.

But three-fourths of the way through the 400-mile event, crew chief Bob Osborne finally was able to diagnose what ailed Edwards’ mount.

“We had the wrong front suspension settings in the car,” said an ecstatic Edwards. “Bob [Osborne] and I together in practice, we prepared the wrong setup, and when they dropped the green I realized we were in deep trouble. So Bob made adjustments to the setup, made some bigger adjustments than we would normally make, and then we were very fortunate with the late race caution and being able to get two tires and have a shot to run up there through the traffic.”

The adjustments propelled the Roush Fenway driver through the field, and when the checkered flag flew, there was Edwards scoring an astonishing fifth-place finish. A result which had him beaming post race and proclaiming that this result was as good as a win.

“I cannot believe we finished fifth, it feels like a win,” said Edwards. “I cannot believe from the way the day started, to finish like that is spectacular.

“I do not deserve to be sitting up here. We should have finished 15th or 20th, so it all worked out in our favor.”

It’s easy to see that if Edwards does go on to win his first Sprint Cup title, Kansas is going to be the race where he looks back and says, this where he won it and seized the moment.

A day that could have been catastrophic, instead turned opportunistic as Edwards was able to regain sole possession of first-place in the championship order by one point over Kevin Harvick.

Harvick, like Edwards, is another driver who wrestled with a car that wasn’t up to snuff for much of the day. But like Edwards, Harvick and his Budweiser team continued making adjustments and by race end he was able to leave with a top-10 finish (sixth) and is very much in the title picture with some of his best tracks still to come.

Hunkering down and making the best out of a situation is how championships are won. It’s a lesson Harvick and Edwards are both well aware of, having both been on the wrong end of close championship battles.

Being steady and reliable and being able to turn proverbial lemons into lemonade is what winning championships is all about. But just as Kansas buoyed the championship aspirations of Johnson, Edwards and Harvick, it conversely put a pin in the title balloons of two other drivers.

The popular consensus heading into the Chase was that Jeff Gordon was going to seriously contend for his fifth Sprint Cup title. Instead, the promise which he showed throughout the regular season has disappeared. A fine fourth-place finish at Dover had been sandwiched between mediocre finishes of 24th and 12th at Chicagoland and Dover.

Thusly, Kansas was supposed to represent the place where Gordon’s “Drive For Five” would be kicked into high gear.

But with a blown engine that left him 34th in the final rundown and 10th in the standings, 47 points behind Edwards, Kansas has now become Gordon’s Waterloo.

Unlike Gordon, Tony Stewart struggled dramatically during the regular season, going winless and barely squeaking into the Chase. But unlike his counterpart, once the playoffs started, Stewart found his form, becoming just the second driver to start the Chase with consecutive victories.

Except an awful race at Dover, where he finished two laps down in 25th, stunted his momentum. If Stewart was to be considered a serious title contender, he would need a good result in the Sunflower State.

And for much of the afternoon a good run appeared to be on the horizon. With Johnson running away with things, the race was for second, and for 130-laps second was a position Stewart held.

But a mishap on his final pit stop which saw Stewart lockup his brakes and slide through his pit box sent him spiraling down the running order.

A 14th-place finish isn’t too terrible in the grand scheme of things, but accompanied with what happened the week before, it all but assures Stewart will not be the first owner-driver since Alan Kulwicki to lift the championship hardware at the end of the year.

After a disappointing weekend, and barring something miraculous happening, for Stewart and Gordon, their quest to win another championship is going to have to wait another year.

For Johnson, Edwards and Harvick, their quest to win a title is very much alive thanks to the respective battles each won in Kansas.

 

If you would like to contact the author of this post, simply click here, and you can also follow The Racing Geek on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of NASCAR Media/Getty Images

Filed Under: Edwards, Gordon, Johnson, Kansas, NASCAR, Stewart, Sub-Feature

Lessons Learned At The Halfway Point

06/12/2011 By Leave a Comment

When the checkered flag waved on the STP 400 last Sunday at Kansas Speedway, it signaled the official halfway point of the 2011 Sprint Cup regular season. What a memorable first half it’s been.

Through 13 races we’ve had unexpected first-time winners in two of the sports biggest events, a legend finding lost glory, NASCAR’s favorite son returning to prominence, Carl Edwards flexing his muscles on the track, with Richard Childress wielding his fists off of it, Richard Petty Motorsports rising up from the ashes, Kyle Busch getting some form of comeuppance, Juan Pablo Montoya threatening legal action against Ryan Newman for punching him, midrace temper tantrums from Kurt Busch and Martin Truex Jr., which brought in sweeping changes for their respective teams, notable flops from drivers who were expected to contend (Jeff Burton, Joey Logano, Jamie McMurray), secret fines that weren’t so secret, Ford, Chevy, Dodge and Toyota all having won at least once, and a plethora of other happenings which has made this season a worthy sequel to the phenomenal year that we saw in 2010.

Here’s a look back at some of the lessons we’ve learned thus far in 2011.

●With an emphatic victory at Phoenix which snapped his 66-race winless streak, Jeff Gordon showed the racing community that he still knows how to win. The bad news, his bouts with inconsistency likely will prevent him from winning his fifth Sprint Cup title.

●Not only is Jeff Gordon’s former crew chief, Steve Letarte, proving to be a miracle worker; he’s also proving to be a much better crew chief than I gave him credit for this offseason.

●Instead of going out with a bang in his final season with Hendrick Motorsports, Mark Martin – zero wins, one top-five, and four top-10s – is going out with a whimper. It’s all but a certainty that in what is likely his final full season in Sprint Cup, the driver who has finished runner-up in the championship five times will be on the outside looking in for the second straight year when the Chase commences in September.

●Ford (particularly the Roush Fenway cars) is head and shoulders above everyone else. Counting the non-points All-Star Race, cars with a blue oval on their hood have won five events this season. On top of that, points leader Carl Edwards is the clear-cut championship favorite, while teammate Matt Kenseth, with victories at Texas and Dover, is also a fringe title contender.

●As a follow-up to the above point, the Ford FR9 is everything it was cracked up to be and more. Since working out the kinks last summer of their long developed and much-maligned power plant, Ford has seen cars bearing its name make eight trips to the winner’s circle, including Trevor Bayne’s much celebrated victory in the Daytona 500.

●Trevor Bayne, Regan Smith, and Brad Keselowski have all won this season, while Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Greg Biffle, Kasey Kahne, and Clint Bowyer all are still looking for their first checkered flag of 2011.

●For fear of getting taken to the woodshed, you don’t mess with Richard Childress. A lesson Kyle Busch now knows all too well after the 65-year-old grandfather sent the 26-year-old cowering to the ground in a fetal position last Saturday in Kansas. Also, the expression “Here, hold my watch” has entered our lexicon as phrase that signals someone’s about to put a whuppin’ on somebody.

●The pipeline of young drivers climbing up through the ranks, which seemed dry just a season ago, is now oozing with talent. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Justin Allgaier, Cole Whitt and Austin Dillon have all shown that they have the talent to one day be winners at the Sprint Cup level. And that’s not even taking into account 20-year-old Trevor Bayne’s triumph in the Daytona 500. Even better for these youngsters is there are more opportunites to compete at the next level than there were a couple of years ago, when Cup team owners shied away from putting a young driver in one of their cars due to lack of sponsorship and the cost involved in repairing wrecked cars through the inevitable growing pains associated with moving up to NASCAR’s top series.

●There is no more schizophrenic team in all of NASCAR than Kurt Busch and his No. 22 team. One week they look like world-beater’s, the next they look like a team coming apart at the seams. For example, last week at Kansas Kurt Busch started on the pole. Yet, as soon as the green flag dropped, the volatile driver was on his radio complaining he had a 43rd-place car. And what happened? All he did was lead the most laps and would’ve likely won had the race had not turned into a game of fuel-mileage. Judging from some of Busch’s comments this season, you’d think he would be somewhere in the teens points-wise. Instead, with a team he rails against almost weekly, he’s sixth overall and has racked-up the third-most top-10 finishes.

●The curse of finishing second to Jimmie Johnson lives on. A year after finishing runner-up to Johnson in the championship standings, Matt Kenseth, Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards and Mark Martin all went winless and came nowhere close to the form they showed the previous year. Although he’s ran better as of late, and the expectation is he wins today at Pocono, the fact is Denny Hamlin has struggled for much of the year and is still is looking for his first victory of 2011.

●With just two top-10s and buried back in 27th in points, Jamie McMurray’s magical season of a year ago which saw him win a career-best three times, is looking more and more like a fluke.

●NASCAR’s revamping of how one qualifies for the Chase and implementing the two wildcard spots, is turning into a stroke of genius. The greater emphasis placed on winning has produced some outstanding racing with teams more willing to gamble and go all-out for victories than ever before. The ferocity will only get ratcheted up as the regular season dwindles down and the opening Chase race at Chicagoland gets closer and closer.

●Joey Logano may be all hype with little actual substance. The third-year driver, despite driving for the powerhouse known as Joe Gibbs Racing and having two-time championship crew chief Greg Zipadelli guiding the Home Depot team, Tony Stewart’s handpicked successor continues to languish in mediocrity.

This is just a sampling of the lessons we’ve learned halfway through the regular season. All of which brings us to some storylines I’m keeping an eye on as we enter the second half.

Crew Chief Roulette
Being a crew chief is a tenuous position with your job status always in constant flux. But with many a big-name driver – Jeff Burton, Brian Vickers, David Reutimann, Jamie McMurray, and the aforementioned Joey Logano – all struggling to find consistent success, perhaps none more so than in the next couple of months.

We saw the first shoe drop earlier this week when Michael Waltrip Racing announced Pat Tryson had been replaced as crew chief for Martin Truex Jr. Not a surprise, considering everyone knew the noose around Tryson’s neck was tightening following Truex’s meltdown a month ago at Richmond, all of which predicated an overhaul of his pit crew a few days later.

With the pressure to perform higher than ever and with the opportunity to sneak into the Chase now an option thanks to the wildcard, owners will not hesitate to make a change if they feel it will jumpstart their chances to get their driver into the playoffs. As with the stick-and-ball sports, it’s always easier to fire the manager than the players. The same theory holds true in NASCAR, where crew chiefs are often looked at as nothing more than scapegoats.

Wild Road To The Chase
The wildcard to getting a wildcard into the Chase is what happens at the two road courses the series visits each year, first later this month at Infineon and in August at Watkins Glen. Say Juan Pablo Montoya wins one or both of these races; the odds are it will be enough for him to snag a spot in the Chase. The same can be said for Marcos Ambrose, another expert road racer who has had a sneaky good year in his first season with Richard Petty Motorsports.

The King Is Dead, Long Live The King?
We say it every year, but it may apply more this year than any other, as there are some chinks in the armor of Jimmie Johnson and the 48 team. The vaunted pit crew which was overhauled in the offseason is still prone to the occasional blunder on pit road, and the magic wand which Chad Knaus often uses to make the Lowes Chevy stronger late in races seems to have run out of pixie dust. More than anything though, Johnson’s reign may come to an end not because of anything he or his team did or did’nt, but simply because the Roush Fenway camp is that much better. Particularly points leader Carl Edwards who, with the exception of Martinsville, has been stout week in and week out.

What’s Mark Going To Do?
Mark Martin has repeatedly said he has no plans to retire at the end of the year and that he plans to race somewhere in 2012. The question is for what team and in what series? No one wants to see one of the classiest and well respected drivers to ever turn a wheel put out to pasture, but the way things are unfolding there doesn’t look to be a ride for the 40-time Sprint Cup winner.

To be honest, I’m not sure Martin is set on enduring the 38-week grind known as the Sprint Cup Series. Look for an announcement sometime this summer that Martin will run a full Nationwide slate for Turner Motorsports with a handful of Cup races sprinkled in.

Danica Mania All The Time; But For Which Team?
Speaking of pending announcements, it’s all but a certainty that in the next month or two Danica Patrick will make it known she will be leaving IndyCar and will be making a fulltime move to NASCAR, where she will run the entire Nationwide schedule next year in preparation for move up to Sprint Cup in 2012. Like Martin, the question is which team will Patrick align herself with?

Conventional wisdom says she’d be foolish to leave Hendrick/JR Motorsports where she’s grown quite comfortable working with crew chief Tony Eury Jr. and where the equipment is always second to none. However, there are those who say it’s no guarantee that Patrick will continue her association with Rick Hendrick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. and that she, along with sponsor Go Daddy.com, will be taking her services elsewhere.

The Year of The Surprise
From Daytona to Kansas, 2011 has undoubtedly been the year of the surprise. Even after improbable winners at Daytona and Darlington, and an unlikely winner in Kansas, it’s hard to imagine we’ll see another unexpected race winner or amazing finish the rest of the year. One that will collectively make everyone go, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming.” However, with the way things have been going, there is always a chance. I’m not sure who it will be next, or when over the next 13 races it’s going to happen, but the way this season has gone, I think its fair to say expect the unexpected.

 

 

If you would like to contact the author of this post, simply click here, and you can also follow The Racing Geek on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of NASCAR Media/Getty Images

Filed Under: Allgaier, Ambrose, Bayne, Busch, Danica Patrick, Edwards, Ford, Gibbs, Gordon, Hamlin, Harvick, Johnson, Kenseth, Letarte, Logano, Martin, McMurray, Montoya, NASCAR, Penske, Roush, Sub-Feature, Truex Jr., Tryson

Monday’s Thoughts: Edwards Wins Ho-Hum All-Star Race

05/23/2011 By Leave a Comment

It was as memorable a moment as we have seen in quite some time in NASCAR’s annual non-points affair featuring the sports best. A moment that through the years will certainly live on via countless replays and discussion.

The only problem is it didn’t occur in the 100 laps that constituted the 27th running of the All-Star Race. A race that is supposed to be defined by its no holds barred, anything goes, there’s nothing a driver won’t do in an effort to walk away with the million dollar prize awarded to the victor mentality.

Instead, it happened after the race had already been decided and many fans had lost interest in the proceedings when it become all but inevitable that Carl Edwards was going to be the one holding the gaudy oversized check in the winner’s circle.

The moment in question was when Edwards in the usual celebratory fashion, decided to drive through the infield sideways to celebrate his dominating win. A move many drivers before him have performed to commemorate a victory. The only difference this time, due to a dip in the grass, Edwards race-winning Ford Fusion sustained heavy damage to its frontend, and nearly flipped in the process. A car that had been so dominant all night long was suddenly mortal. Steam emanating from its engine and having to be towed to victory lane.

To the victor go the spoils. And after a night where he clearly had the superior car pretty much throughout the 150-mile event, and out restarted Kyle Busch, regarded as the best restarter in the business, for the final 10 lap sprint to the finish, a wrecked racecar is slightly easier to swallow.

“You never know what comes from misfortunes, Edwards rationed, when he spoke with reporters afterwards. “It was definitely unfortunate that I tore up that racecar. Like Bob (crew chief Bob Osborne) said, we got another one at the shop. It might be the difference in winning the race at the Coke 600.

“I’m going to have confidence that something good will come out of it.”

The winning crew chief wasn’t quite as optimistic.

“The only positive I can see here,” said Bob Osborne, “is that Jack [Roush] allows us to build a new car.”

Either way, it’s only fitting that in a race stacked with winners from the last year, along with former series champions and a host of other more than capable drivers, that the guy who’s been the points leader for seven of 11 weeks and has more top-10 finishes than anyone else, was standing the tallest when everything was said and done.

After all, this race is supposed to showcase the best NASCAR has to offer, and there’s little doubt that Edwards, who has one victory this season, and could easily have five others, right now is the best.

The relationship between Edwards and Osborne is one of the best in the garage. Further exemplified when the two put their collective heads together before the fourth and final segment to determine what adjustments needed to be made to withstand the forthcoming onslaught that typically is associated with a 10 lap dash to the checkers.

Being the best is going to pay big dividends for Edwards. And soon.

You see, following the season his contract is up with Roush Fenway Racing. Although, Edwards has stated all along he wants to remain with the only organization he’s ever driven for, he is open to leaving Roush Fenway if another team comes along and offers him a better opportunity to win races more consistently.

His car owner knows there are few, if any, drivers who bring to the table what the 19-time Sprint Cup winner does.

“Carl is a rockstar,” Roush said. “He’s the only back-flipper in the field. He’s the first one to crawl up into the stands. Some of the drivers wouldn’t go up in the stands like that after a race, and for good reason. But Carl, he’s well thought of and he’s out there doing things that other people wish they thought of first, and he drives the hell out of our racecars.

“He’s a draw for sponsors and a rallying point for his team.”

Although on the surface it appears as if Edwards is the one holding all the cards in the negotiations, that’s not necessarily true. The owner dubbed “The Cat In The Hat” actually might be the one sitting in the catbird seat.

As I went in-depth about a few weeks back, Edwards’ options aren’t very intriguing. Barring an unforeseen scenario where a ride unexpectedly opens up at Hendrick, Gibbs, or Childress, there isn’t a team that can offer the All-Star Race winner the caliber of equipment as the team for which he’s currently driving.

Just look what transpired this weekend where the overall strength of Roush Fenway Racing was on full display.

Saturday night, we saw Edwards’ teammate, David Ragan, earn his way into the All-Star Race with a win in the Sprint Showdown qualifier. Later, in the first segment of the four-segment main event, it was Greg Biffle speeding away with the victory, with Edwards taking top honors in the next three segments.

And yesterday, in the Nationwide Series race at Iowa Speedway, Edwards finished second to Roush developmental driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who posted his first career series victory.

What Edwards needs to ask himself is why would he want to leave an organization which through the first third of the season has clearly established itself as the number one team in NASCAR. Going anywhere else would be considered a downgrade from his current situation, which is the exact opposite of his stated goal of wanting to be aligned with a team that can best help him win races and championships.

For the time being, let’s put the contract stuff on the backburner and acknowledge the almost flawless performance Edwards displayed Saturday night. With one notable exception: An ill-advised trip through the infield.

Perhaps Jack Roush will write that into Edwards’ next contract that he has to stick to celebrating victories with back flips and going into the grandstands to shake hands with the fans?

###

Besides Carl Edwards’ off-road excursion, the one storyline to take away from this year’s All-Star Race, was the lack of action stemming from Saturday night’s festivities.

The All-Star Race is always heavily promoted as the one race each year where drivers let it all hangout, and only care about one thing – winning.

But instead of hard racing with the usual array of drivers vowing revenge in the garage post-race, this year’s race was as bland as a Jimmie Johnson championship speech.

It has nothing to do with the fact that there weren’t any multi-car wrecks or a driver intentionally wrecking another. As I’m not some rube, who only watches racing just for the spectacular wrecks and the fireworks that often follow.

I watch because I want to see the best stockcar drivers in the world go at it with a ferocity that we don’t usual see in the 36 races throughout the year where points are awarded.

That means plenty of hard, clean, side-by-side racing, where no quarter is asked and none is given.

Except there’s no way you could watch all 100 laps Saturday night and think this was somehow different than what we see throughout the season.

But that’s not necessarily the fault of the drivers.

The culprit is how big of a factor being in clear air plays on a track the size of the 1.5-mile Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Due to aero dynamics and the fact that the tires Goodyear brings to the track are lasting longer, to the point speeds are now the same between a driver with two fresh tires underneath him compared to one with four, cars are more apt to get strung-out. Thusly, we see more single file racing. As you hear all the time, track position is now everything. Even if a driver has a fast car with fresh rubber, it doesn’t mean a thing if they’re running in dirty air.

Nowadays, the quickest way to turn a potentially winning car into average one is put it back in traffic.

However, sometimes there are races where one team hits on a setup and is simply head and shoulders above everyone else. Much like the 99 team was on Saturday.

“The most frustrating part is when you have a shot to win or when you feel like you have a shot to win and something happens to you,” said second-place finisher Kyle Busch. “Those are really frustrating because you never know how it would turn out.

“Tonight we flat out got beat. There’s nothing to hang our heads about; there’s nothing to be frustrated about tonight. We just didn’t quite have enough when we needed it.”

This happens. But that doesn’t excuse what we saw throughout the rest of the field, where things were rather mundane. Especially in light of this being a race where being conservative is the antithesis of what the evening is all about.

“From my vantage point, it was kind of a tame race today. Sorry, we didn’t give you any scoop or drama,” said a smiling Busch.”

I can accept that not every All-Star Race is going to be a gem. But when the drivers start apologizing for the lack of action, it should be cause for concern for everyone involved.

###

Odds & Ends

●To the surprise of no one, Dale Earnhardt won the fans vote and as such, nabbed the final spot in the All-Star Race. Unfortunately, the fans who voted for the 2000 winner of this race weren’t able to help him find the handle on his Chevrolet and he finished a rather pedestrian 14th.

●You don’t often see Chad Knaus make the wrong decision, hence why he’s called “The Mastermind.” But for the second week in a row, he misjudged how many tires to take during a pit stop and it cost his driver a potential victory. Consequently, the indecision by the head wrench for the five-time defending champion may be grating on the nerves of his driver. Usually, Jimmie Johnson is the definition of calm, except on Saturday he and Knaus had quite a few terse exchanges on the radio about the handling of their Chevrolet, as well as track position which the No. 48 team found itself on the wrong end of.

Is this a chink in the armor everyone has been looking for these last five years? No. To me, this is nothing to be concerned about long-term. Saturday was an atypical race all around for a team where anything less than perfection is deemed unacceptable.

●He’s often the butt of my stupid, and let’s be honest, often sophomoric jokes, but let’s give some love to David Ragan who showed fine form in winning the Sprint Showdown. Although the results haven’t always been there in 2011 (remember Daytona?) for the much maligned driver of the No. 6 Roush Fenway Ford, the fact is, he has run this season far better than the results showed. Almost to the point it wouldn’t be all that surprising to see Ragan win sometime before the year is out.

 

If you would like to contact the author of this post, simply click here, and you can also follow The Racing Geek on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of NASCAR Media/Getty Images

Filed Under: Busch, Charlotte, Earnhardt Jr., Edwards, Johnson, Knaus, NASCAR, Ragan, Roush, Thoughts

Monday’s Thoughts: Two Is Better Than Four at Dover

05/16/2011 By Leave a Comment

Through the first 340 laps it appeared a virtual certainty that either Jimmie Johnson or Carl Edwards would leave Dover with their second win of the season. Respectively, the two led 207 and 117 laps and neither was far from the lead at any given point of the 400 lap/mile race.

If there was someone who could topple the two giants of the Monster Mile, Clint Bowyer was the leading candidate. The Richard Childress driver had worked his way back from being nearly a lap down earlier, and took the top spot from the 99 and 48 on Lap 334 for 29 laps.

Except this wasn’t a normal race at Dover. Instead, this race featured ever changing track conditions thanks to the continued rubber buildup on the one-mile concrete oval. From the drop of the green flag it was obvious the Monster Mile was nothing more than a one-groove racetrack, where one bobble would quickly move a driver up out of the preferred line and consequently lose positions on the track.

As things played out, it was track position and not having a fast car that ultimately played the pivotal role in deciding the outcome.

Thanks to a single-car incident involving Juan Pablo Montoya 38 laps from the finish, teams had a crucial decision to make. A) Come in to the pits and put four fresh Goodyear’s on; B) Hit the pits but only take two tires; or C) Stay out on the track and gamble that the tires you have are fresh enough to make it the finish.

Bowyer, Edwards and Johnson all went with option A. A decision which I thought was the right one to make under circumstances, considering Dover typically chews up tires and there were still quite a few laps left in FedEx 400.

But on this day, on this track, with tires that showed little wear, it was a decision that came back to bite the three frontrunners. Not to mention, a move that caused me to eat a plate full of crow afterwards.

The beneficiaries in all this were Matt Kenseth, who had steadily worked his way into the top-five after starting 23rd, and Mark Martin, who was no better than an eighth-place car all day. Both correctly figured that their only chance of winning was to roll the dice and gamble on track position. With Kenseth taking only two tires and Martin completely foregoing a trip to pit road for fresh rubber.

This decision proved to be a wise one as the final 34 laps went caution free. The favorable track position, along with the clean air that goes with it, allowed the two veterans to pull away from the field. When the checkered flag waved, Kenseth had picked up his second victory of 2011 while Martin’s runner-up finish represented his first top-five finish since Texas last fall.

As for the three drivers who combined led 353 laps, playing it safe and taking four tires proved to be their downfall. Bowyer and Edwards could only fight their way back to sixth and seventh in the final rundown, while Johnson crossed the line in ninth.

“I guess in our minds we didn’t think that would take place, so many guys taking two [tires],” said Jimmie Johnson, who has now led the most laps in the last five Dover races. “It was certainly the call. I knew basically from the numbers we were in trouble when we left pit road and there were so many guys in front of us. It is just the way it is.

“We had a great race all day. Led a lot of laps but unfortunately, not the one at the end that counted.”

So the victory, in a race which two drivers dominated pretty much throughout and another had put himself in position to win, instead went to a driver who himself said he had a 15th-place car.

If there’s one lesson we’ve learned in a season in which Trevor Bayne and Regan Smith have won the two biggest races, it’s that anything can and often does happen. Rarely is the car sitting in victory lane at the end of the day, the one who actually dominated the proceedings.

Conversely, for those who think maybe Kenseth didn’t deserve the victory, the counterargument to that is strategy and track position has long been as much a part of NASCAR as oversized engines and crew chiefs skirting the rules through dubious means.

As winning car owner Jack Roush vehemently pointed out post-race, it’s not as if his driver wasn’t strong all afternoon.

“If anybody was watching the lap checkers, Matt drove from 23rd to the top five,” Roush said in the media center. “As hard as it is to pass, as hard as it is to deal with this Car of Tomorrow, struggling there, when I saw that, I figured the 17 was the equal of the cars running up front based on my look at it.

“They didn’t back into this thing. They deserved to be up there. Between the two of them (Kenseth and crew chief Jimmy Fennig), they made the gutsy call for two tires. As many times as they’ve been burned by it, I was surprised they did that.”

Yeah, Kenseth may have stolen this victory, and who cares if the only thing he was missing in victory lane was a mask and a pistol. Often in racing you lose races you should win; other times you win races you had no business winning.

Either way, the record book will show Kenseth notching his 20th career Sprint Cup. And really, that’s all that matters.

###

As his one win and three second-place finishes can attest, no driver in 2011 has exhibited the consistent speed that points leader Carl Edwards has week in, and week out. A trait once again on full display Sunday as outside of green flag pit stops, he never ran outside the top-10, and would have likely finished first or second if that fateful yellow flag 38 laps from the finish wouldn’t have come out when it did.

At the time Edwards was running second, and he and crew chief Bob Osbourne as detailed above, elected to go with four tires instead of two. Their thought process being they had enough laps to work their way up to the front even if a couple of drivers either just took two or didn’t pit at all.

The flaw in that plan was more teams gambled than they expected, and therefore the 99 team found themselves in a position where winning was no longer a possibility.

Surprisingly, Edwards wasn’t regretting his ill-fated decision that cost him a chance to notch his second victory of the year.

Something that I guess is easier to accept when you’ve had the kind of year that the Roush Fenway driver has had. Instead he had to settle for his ninth top-10 finish in 11 races and expanded his points lead over second-place Jimmie Johnson by 24 markers.

“That is too tough of a choice (two-tires vs. four) to make right there and I don’t blame Bob Osborne one bit. I thought we would be able to march up through there and I thought the race would be between Clint and I. I did see a couple cars go fast early on two tires but I really felt we were going to have something.

“If we had had a caution who knows what would have happened? You can’t look back, you have to look forward. We still have the points lead and the fastest car here today.”

###

For the second race in a row at the Monster Mile, AJ Allmendinger looked to be inline for his first career victory. Starting second, thanks to a fast practice time Friday after qualifying was rained out, the former open-wheel standout quickly asserted himself as one of the cars to beat. Although his Best Buy machine wasn’t in the same class as the 99 or 48, the No. 43 Ford was a fixture up front, running solidly in the top-five.

But just like last fall, factors outside of Allmendinger’s control contributed to him getting a finish less than he deserved. This time around a sickly engine running on only seven cylinders sent the 29-year-old driver to the garage prematurely.

A disappointing end to a day once filled with so much promise.

“I don’t know, it was weird because it all happened at once and there was no sign of it. We were going to run them down and all of a sudden off of two it went. It was getting steadily worse. Doug Yates and all the guys at the engine shop do a great job. We had a ton of horsepower and this rarely happens.

“Honestly it sucks. I really wanted this for us and Ford and Best Buy and everybody; The King especially. I hate this.”

The 37th-place finish knocked Allmendinger down five spots in the standings to 16th and again made me wonder what would happen if the talented, star struck driver was driving for a team that matched his talents. A moot point, considering last August he signed a contract extension with Richard Petty Motorsports that will keep him with the two-car team for the foreseeable future.

Sunday was another race in a long line of them this season where Carl Edwards had a car good enough to win, but came away with a finish less than he deserved.

 

If you would like to contact the author of this post, simply click here, and you can also follow The Racing Geek on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of NASCAR Media/Getty Images

Filed Under: Allmendinger, Dover, Edwards, Johnson, Kenseth, NASCAR, Roush, Thoughts

What Should Carl Do?

04/25/2011 By 2 Comments

Last Sunday in the media center at Talladega Super Speedway, Greg Biffle, along with officials from Roush Fenway Racing and Ford Racing, announced a contract extension which will keep Biffle and sponsor 3M with the team through the 2014 season.

That fact that Biffle, whose contract was up at the end of the year, elected to re-sign with the team he’s won 16 races for and twice finished third or better in points, wasn’t a surprise. From the get go he’s made no secret about the fact that he really had no intention of signing with another organization.

Going as far back as Daytona he even proved himself as a bit of a soothsayer, saying he expected a deal to be done at some point in the first quarter of the year. And wallah, eight races into the season that is precisely what happened.

But not every negotiation goes as easily as the one just completed, and not every deal is a seemingly foregone conclusion where both parties know eventually a compromise will be reached.

All one has to do is look at the protracted negotiations between another driver with an expiring contract who also drives for Roush Fenway Racing.

Carl Edwards, like his teammate, has a contract which will expire once the checkered flag waves at Homestead to end the 2011 season. Just as Biffle did before his new deal was inked, Edwards has continually said he wants to remain with the only team he’s ever driven for.

The similarities end there.

Unlike Biffle, Edwards has had no reservation in saying he would leave Roush Fenway Racing if he felt it was best for him and his career.

Because as he has mentioned quite frequently, it’s not about what team can offer him the most money. The most important factor to him when deciding his future boils down to one thing: Which team will give him the best opportunity to win races and championships?

Ideally it would be Roush Fenway, but this ultimately might not come to fruition. So Edwards has left the door open to moving elsewhere for 2012.

If this is his final season driving for Jack Roush, what are his other options? Is there another organization with a seat open that can give him what he craves over staying with the only team outside of Hendrick Motorsports to win multiple championships in the eight years?

To help Edwards with his decision, I will do for him what I did for a pair of high-profile free agents the last couple of years, and help guide him in making the wisest choice possible. In each of the aforementioned scenarios, I laid out the respective opportunities before them and advised them on which course each should take.

First there was Brad Keselowski, a fulltime Nationwide Series driver ready to take the next step in his career, whose services were in high demand thanks to a dramatic win at Talladega.

However, the team he was aligned with at the time, Hendrick Motorsports, didn’t readily have a seat open for him, and didn’t appear to have one opening up anytime soon.

At the time I said that unless a ride with one of Rick Hendrick’s four cars was immediately available, it would be in his best interest to wait and see what happens over at Penske Racing, where David Stremme would surely be a goner by the end of the year.

Astutely, Keselowski did just this. Later in the year, when The Captain had seen enough wrecked racecars to fill a junkyard, he gave Stremme his walking papers. It was Keselowski who Penske signed as his replacement.

While the marriage on the Cup-side of things is still a work in progress, the pair did have instant success in the Nationwide Series, where last year Keselowski comfortably won the driver’s title. Marking it the first NASCAR championship Penske had won of any kind.

After aiding Brad Keselowski next up was Kevin Harvick.

About this time a year ago, Harvick looked to be all but gone from Richard Childress Racing, likely to either drive a third car for Stewart-Haas Racing or starting his own Sprint Cup team.

My advice to Harvick was to be careful thinking a change of teams would bring him the continued success he so desperately wanted. The “grass isn’t always greener on the other side,” I wrote.

After all, Richard Childress Racing had proven they could field competitive cars for Harvick and seemed poised for a bounceback after a disappointing 2009 season.

A win at Talladega convinced Harvick, and shortly thereafter he announced he had signed a contract extension with RCR. From there, he would go on to win two more races and finish third in points. A year later, the 29 has already been victorious twice and looks primed to be a major player in the championship fight.

So what has become an annual tradition, let’s take a look at the scenarios Carl Edwards has before him and determine if it’s in his best interests to leave Roush Fenway Racing.

The only way we’ll know is by weighing all the options. And no, Hendrick nor Childress are realistic possibilities. Both teams are at the NASCAR-imposed four-team cap and neither organization will have a ride available for 2012. Which means, according to my suspect math skills, leaves Edwards with four viable options to consider.

The Coach Would Like To See You In His Office
In a perfect world, if Carl Edwards were to leave Roush Fenway, this would be the team. They consistently field fast cars that win races in bunches and are a perennial Sprint Cup power.

Joe Gibbs Racing has made no secret that in the right situation and with the right driver and sponsor in place, they would expand from three cars to four. Well, with Edwards as good of a driver as you’ll find in NASCAR, if you have the opportunity to sign a driver of his ilk, you have to take the opportunity.

The problem is signing Edwards isn’t going to be cheap. Not to mention finding a big-time sponsor to come on board is no easy task. Companies aren’t exactly climbing over each other to throw $20 million on a moving 200 mph billboard in an economy that has yet to completely recover.

Is this an option? Yes. But unless a sponsor miraculously signs on overnight, it’s remote at best. If that doesn’t happen this is nothing more than a pipedream.

Take The Money and Run With The Bull
According to a friend of mine who I would classify as in the know, if there’s an organization to keep an eye in the Carl Edwards Sweepstakes, it’s Team Red Bull Racing. Basically it comes down to three factors: 1) They have money, 2) They need to do something to become relevant, and 3) With Kasey Kahne’s departure at the end of the year, a seat readily available.

Except there is one problem.

If Edwards is serious about wanting to win, this isn’t the team to join. Since entering NASCAR fulltime in 2007, Red Bull has consistently been one thing, and that’s inconsistent. Not to mention, they’ve won just one race and the team is continually immersed in turmoil behind the scenes.

Yes, they have money and the Austrian beverage company wants to win desperately, but this is a rebuilding job if there ever was one. In no way is this a situation where Edwards can hop in one of their Toyotas and win instantly.

Let’s scratch them off the list.

Captain, Oh Captain
This is purely guesswork on my part, and me surmising that Roger Penske feels the heat from Miller Lite and is being pressured to put a driver who’s actually capable of winning in his famed No. 2 Dodge, something Brad Keselowski has yet to show he can do.

As of now, there’s no indication Keselwoski is in danger of losing his ride. But let’s assume  he continues to demonstrate the form he’s shown to this point during his tenure at Penske Racing – just two top-10s in 44 starts – it’s hard to imagine a marquee sponsor like Miller Lite being too happy. Particularly, when you take into consideration their main rivals, Budweiser, has already made two trips to victory lane just eight races into the year. That’s not going to sit too well with the higher-ups at Miller.

It’s farfetched, it’s improbable, but stranger things have happened.

Home Is Where The Heart Is
Eventually at some point in the middle of the season, Carl Edwards and Jack Roush are going to come to terms on a new contract that will keep Edwards with the team for the foreseeable future.

And you know what? It’s the best choice for everyone involved.

With the possible exception of Joe Gibbs, who can better give Edwards fast, race-winning cars than Roush Fenway? While at the same time, Edwards gives Roush a driver who can win a title right now. This is not something the flagship Ford team can easily replace.

Say Edwards does leave, who is Roush going to get to replace him? Brian Vickers? Too unpredictable and lacks the immaturity to win a title.

Trevor Bayne? He’s still years away and outside of Daytona has struggled mightily in limited Cup starts.

Sign Clint Bowyer as a replacement? Maybe, but the odds that Richard Childress lets him get away are minimal at best.

If everything goes right, Matt Kenseth or Greg Biffle might win Roush Fenway’s third championship. Long-term though, neither offers the year in and year out possibilities that Edwards brings to the table.

Edwards wants to win, Roush can give him the equipment to do so, and eventually the two sides will realize it’s in everyone’s best interests to come to terms on a new contract. Something I fully expect to happen sometime during the summer months.  

 

If you would like to contact the author of this post, simply click here, and you can also follow The Racing Geek on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of NASCAR Media/Getty Images

Filed Under: Biffle, Edwards, Gibbs, NASCAR, Penske, Roush, Sub-Feature, Team Red Bull

Monday’s Thoughts: Kenseth Stomps The Competition

04/11/2011 By Leave a Comment

From Jeff Gordon snapping his 82-race winless streak at Phoenix to the continued efforts of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his quest to end his 100-race drought, the word ‘streak’ has been a popular one in 2011.

Just because he doesn’t have the accomplishments of Jeff Gordon or the pedigree of Dale Earnhardt Jr., Matt Kenseth’s winless streak was often overlooked.

But Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway, the 2003 series champion made his presence felt in a big way. As he dominated the Samsung Mobile 500 and easily cruised to his first victory since February 2009, when he won at Auto Club Speedway, a span of 76 races.

“Yeah, it feels good to get back to Victory Lane,” said the driver who had four runner-up finishes since his last victory. “It’s been a long time. You talk about the second place finishes here (Kenseth finished second here last fall), and I got beaten at the end of a lot of these races. It’s great to finish second if you can’t win.

“But another way is like getting kicked in the gut. You have to come back. Like last fall you look at Jimmy, and you come back and look at the guys and you’re leading with two to go, three to go, five to go, and you don’t win, it’s always disappointing.

The only disappointment in this race was the lack of competition up front.

On a night where long stretches of green flag ruled the evening, Kenseth’s margin of victory was a cushy 8.3 seconds over second-place Clint Bowyer. The only thing in doubt was whether Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart, who had pitted out of sequence, could squeeze enough out of their fuel tanks to make it to the finish without pitting. But forced into fuel conservation mode wasn’t enough, as both Busch and Stewart came up short and handed the lead to Kenseth 13 laps from the finish.

It was then they started engraving Kenseth’s name on the trophy, because on this night there wasn’t a car in the country who could keep pace with the driver who was desperately in search of his 19th career win.

Like any driver in a prolonged slump who then finds himself back in the winner’s circle, it reminded Kenseth of just how special winning is and how precious each and every victory is.

“You know, I felt better the last six months. Everything’s been looking up. Certainly the previous 12 months before that was frustrating for me. As you start to get older and with the results — it’s been over two years since we won — you can’t help but think, ‘Is this the way it’s going to go? Are we going to keep trickling backwards?’

“It’s been a long time, and we’ve had a lot of fun going to the racetrack here the last two months the last year, and the first part of this year it feels like we’re back into a contending form.”

Not only was it Kenseth’s night, it was Ford’s as well. The Blue Oval Armada led 191 of 334 laps and placed five cars in the top-seven spots. Four of them being fielded by the powerful Roush Fenway organization, which is experiencing a resurgence after a couple of down years.

This has left longtime Ford team owner, Jack Roush, extremely proud of what he and his team have accomplished in the past year in overcoming their struggles.

“I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to do in 2011,” Roush said. “You know, we tuned up our engineering program with Ford’s help over the winter and we got a new Ford nose. Everybody got a new nose this year, but our new nose was better than our old nose, I think. And we’ve had our FR9 engine really up to speed.”

More than anything though, this night was about Matt Kenseth and his fight to break a winless streak which has hung around his neck like a noose, the last two years.

“I can’t say how proud I am to be here with Matt,” beamed Roush, “realizing that he’s not gotten the success that his effort has deserved in recent past.”

###

On a night when the winner appeared virtually decided from the outset, Clint Bowyer’s runner-up finish can be looked at as a best in class finish. One that wasn’t without adventure, as the Richard Childress driver mixed it up with the lapped car of Brian Vickers late and it resulted in him dancing sideways down the front stretch.

“I just forced the issue a little too much,” said the driver who’s won many a race on a dirt track. “Got loose underneath, having got into him, and almost ruined the night.

“Did you see that? It was dirt tracking at its best, in the middle of the straightaway.

“Not supposed to do that.”

No matter how he did, the end result shows Bowyer posting his best finish of the year, and a finish which moved him up to 12th in points. It also marked his third consecutive finish inside the top-10 and considering he stubbed his toe out of the gate and was struggling to show the form that had him winning two races the previous season, this would be constituted as a nice turnaround.

Even better is a stop next Sunday at Talladega, a track which the Kansas driver won on last fall, and where he will certainly be viewed at as one of the heavy favorites.

###

Due to a rice-and-bean dish mom cooked up for him Friday, Edwards’ stomach wasn’t up to the task of racing on the Texas high-banks. As someone whose mom’s cooking hasn’t always agreed with him, I know firsthand how the nauseous Carl Edwards was feeling Saturday night. What I can’t relate to is having to endure 500 miles of hard racing at 200 mph after a “questionable” meal.

It got the point that Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was standing by in case a relief driver was needed. Not that Edwards was ever going to succumb to pulling himself out of the car, because that’s not who he is.

Instead, he gutted through the 3 hour and 21 minute race thanks to a concoction of medicine his crew passed to him and somehow finished third. A position which was good enough to move him back ahead of Kyle Busch atop the Sprint Cup standings.

###

There was no late-race rally Saturday for the driver who entered the weekend having won back-to-back races. Thanks to a punctured radiator as well as not being able to get track position in a race where it was of the utmost importance, Kevin Harvick, for really the first time all year, turned in his first race where he was a complete non-factor.

Was this simply an off-weekend or was it a sign that this team’s program on the intermediate tracks still has a way to go before they can be viewed as serious title contenders?

Considering this team won at Auto Club Speedway just two weeks ago, a track similar to Texas, the evidence suggests this was just one of those weekends.

Something crew chief Gil Martin concurred with post-race.

“We’ve had a good race every race this year. Sooner or later you’re going to have a bad one. We’ll bounce back from it.”

This Sunday will be more to the 29’s liking as the series returns to Talladega. A track which saw Richard Childress Racing sweep both races at a year ago, including Harvick’s win in the spring event. A good run Sunday will quickly erase what was considered a lost weekend in the Lone Star State.

###

Odds & Ends

● Dale Earnhardt Jr. followed up his strong runner-up finish at Martinsville nicely with a ninth-place run. The result moved him up two spots in the standings to sixth.

● In a clear sign of how wayward his season has gone, Jeff Burton’s 11th-place finish was his best of the year.

● Greg Biffle’s fourth-place finish was not only his best result of the year; it was also his first top-five of 2011.

● After recording zero top-10s through the first five races, Saturday night’s polesitter David Ragan has scored consecutive finishes of 8th and 7th the last two weeks.

● Saturday marked the Sprint Cup debut of Truck Series regular David Starr. Unfortunately though, it ended with the Texas native finding the outside wall, resulting in a 38th-place finish.
 

If you would like to contact the author of this post, simply click here, and you can also follow The Racing Geek on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of NASCAR Media/Getty Images

Filed Under: Bowyer, Edwards, Ford, Gil Martin, Harvick, Kenseth, NASCAR, Roush, Texas, Thoughts

Carl Edwards Is All Smiles

03/25/2011 By Leave a Comment

If you come across Carl Edwards in the garage, odds are fairly high that you’ll see a big smile on his face. That’s just who he is. He’s a guy who’s happy with his lot in life, as well as his place in the hierarchy of NASCAR.

And there is no reason why Edwards shouldn’t be happy, considering the strong start he’s had to the 2011 season. Through four races, he has one victory, two seconds and as a result finds himself just one point in arrears of Kurt Busch in the Sprint Cup standings.

From the superspeedway of Daytona, where Edwards narrowly missed out on winning his first Daytona 500, to the Phoenix bullring, where the No. 99 Subway car was the class of the field before getting wrecked, to Las Vegas, where he sped away with his third win in five races, and last week at Bristol, where the Roush Fenway driver ran door handle-to-door handle with Kyle Busch in the closing laps before settling for second, Edwards has clearly established himself as the guy to beat week in and week out, no matter the kind of track the series finds itself racing on for that particular week.

Making the success all the sweeter is the disappointment of failed expectations the Columbia, Missouri driver has experienced the last couple of years.

After winning 15 Cup races from 2005-08, making the Chase for the Sprint Cup three out of four years, including finishing a very strong second to Jimmie Johnson, the future appeared limitless for Carl Edwards. To the point he was the favorite to unseat Johnson heading into the 2009 season.

But what was expected to be the pinnacle of Edwards’ career never materialized, through a combination of unreliable equipment, pressing too hard and not being able to handle the expectations that were placed before him.

“A year ago, I was thinking, ‘Man, what’s wrong,’ explained Edwards last weekend? ‘What are we doing wrong here?’ I was looking at myself saying, ‘What do I have to do to be better? Am I missing something? Are we not communicating the right way?

“It’s a totally different mindset and it feels good to be in a position where you show up and I’m thinking about winning this race.”

What followed was a lengthy winless streak. After tasting victory a series-best nine times in ’08, Edwards was shutout of victory lane entirely the following season. And it wasn’t until the 35th race of the ’10 season that he returned to the winner’s circle. All in total, it was a span of 70-races without a win for one of the sport’s best drivers.

“At the time, you just want to explode you’re so frustrated,” Edwards said last Sunday, after his second-place finish at Bristol.

“It is tough. Man, looking back, if I could write a letter to myself and send it back eight months, I’d say, ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing, everything is fine.’

However, since recapturing his winning ways last November in Phoenix, Edwards has become a force. He backed up his victory on the one-mile racetrack with a dominating win the next week in the season-ending race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

With that furious finish last year which notched him consecutive victories and reestablished his place among the sports best wheelman, Edwards was again seen by many as a title favorite entering the offseason.

It was a label Edwards wanted no part of. Even going as far to jokingly beg reporters not to tab him again as the favorite.

So what’s the difference? How does a driver who didn’t win a single race in nearly two full seasons, go from being seen as a disappointment, to being regarded as one of the three heavy favorites alongside Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch to win the championship?

Chiefly, it has to do with the fact the team he drives for, Roush Fenway Racing, after scuffling along these last few years with an inferior engine package that lacked both reliability and horsepower, has not only caught back up to the competition, they’ve surpassed them thanks to Ford’s new engine, the FR9.

Since rolling out the new power plant mid-season last year on a fulltime basis, Ford has become a fixture at the front of the field, and is dominating on the track with an engine seen as by many as the best in the garage.

To the point, Edwards, along with two of his Roush Fenway teammates, Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle, were able to finish out 2010 by placing in the top-six in the yearend standings. This season, the manufacturer opened the year with a stirring win in the Daytona 500 thanks to the efforts of then unknown, Trevor Bayne.

“I have to give Doug Yates and the engine shop a lot of credit because I think we have more power than we ever had last year,” said Matt Kenseth, after winning just his fifth pole in 12 years on the circuit, two weeks ago at Las Vegas. “This is our first full season with the FR9 and we started running better on it toward the end of last year.

“They keep working to make our cars better and we got better toward the end of last year and you really don’t know about this year for probably about another month or so but I think we can continue down this path of making ourselves better.”

Another key factor in Edwards’ early season surge is the emphasis he and crew chief Bob Osborne put on carrying over the level of success they had late last year into the offseason and into 2011.

A task the 99 team has had a hard time doing anytime the bar has been set high for them – i.e. the year they had in 2009 when they fell flat on their collective faces.

“I wouldn’t say we were complacent or anything like that, but we might have been a little bit unrealistic about where we stood,” Edwards said nine days before the Daytona 500.

Add everything together and Edwards is off to what he calls the best start of his career.

The underlying effect in all this is his fantastic start accompanied with the rejuvenation of Roush Fenway, is that it has greatly increased the odds that Edwards, whose contract is up at the end of the year, will re-sign with the only team he’s ever driven for at the Sprint Cup-level.

It’s no secret Edwards is going to sign with the team that gives him the best shot to win races and championships. If that means signing with another organization to do that, so be it.

But Edwards is quick to emphasize that his best-case scenario would be accomplishing all his goals with the team he’s driven for since 2004.

“I have a great relationship with everybody at Roush, and my first goal would be to race that 99 car with Jack and for Aflac,” said Edwards back in Daytona.

“That would be the dream deal.”

Four races into the season, it’s looking like that may come to fruition sooner rather than later.

Now, that would really be something to smile about.

 

 

If you would like to contact the author of this post, simply click here, and you can also follow The Racing Geek on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of NASCAR Media/Getty Images

Filed Under: Edwards, Ford, NASCAR, Roush, Sub-Feature
« Older Posts