Despite having locked up a spot in NASCAR’s championship round, Columbia native Carl Edwards didn’t enjoy the relaxing weekend at Phoenix International Raceway he’d hoped for, culminating Sunday with a 19th-place finish in the Can-Am 500.
“I was a little bit (more relaxed) before the race, but then, once the race got going, things weren’t going really well,” Edwards said. “I got just as frustrated as normal. I thought it would be a more relaxed race, but it really wasn’t.”
Still, Edwards qualified for NASCAR’s Championship Four, which will battle for the Sprint Cup crown this Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway by virtue of a rain-shortened victory the week before at Texas Motor Speedway.
Certainly, that made the struggles at Phoenix easier to swallow.
“When we left Martinsville (Speedway), it was very clear what we had to do,” said Edwards, who was in danger of elimination after finishing 36th in the opening race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup round of eight at the half-mile oval in Virginia. “We had to win. As much pressure as that created, it also made things very simple. That whole weekend (at Texas), our approach was just to be aggressive and do whatever we can to win.”
That victory, the 28th in a Sprint Cup race during his 13-year career, afforded Edwards the luxury of taking it easy in Arizona. He told The Star last week before the race in Phoenix he was already focused on the finale in Miami.
“We’ve already started planning,” Edwards said. “When I lay down at night, I think about that race and what I’m going to do. I feel very fortunate. I’ve had some experience is going to Homestead and racing for a championship, so I can use that.”
Edwards finished second behind six-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson in 2008 and lost a tiebreaker with Tony Stewart for the 2011 title in a pair of races that came down to a winner-take-all duel at Homestead.
Edwards, who’s never won a Sprint Cup title, said 2011, in particular, was “a really big test.”
“There was a ton of talk and buildup and a ton of pressure leading into that,” he said. “It wasn’t four guys, it was two guys, me and Tony, and it was so cool to be a part of that. It’s the neatest thing I’ve been a part of it racing.”
Edwards won the pole for that race and led the most laps, but Stewart nipped him for the checkered flag and, ultimately, the season championship as well.
Nonetheless, Edwards learned a lot about himself and championship-level racing.
“We didn’t win, but I didn’t have any regrets,” Edwards said. “Neither of made any mistakes. I wasn’t sure how I would perform under that much pressure, so ever since then I’ve just been waiting for the opportunity to do it again and now I hope the outcome will be different.”
NASCAR adopted a playoff format in 2004, which is the same season Edwards made his Sprint Cup debut.
The playoff has undergone numerous revisions since its introduction, but Edwards has yet to solve the championship equation. Under the old system, wherein points accumulation throughout the season determined the champion, Edwards would have won the titles in 2008 and 2011.
You still won’t catch Edwards complaining about how fair or unfair the Chase format is this week as he tries to fend off Johnson, Kyle Busch and Joey Logano for the crown.
“I’m probably not an objective judge right now, because it worked for us right now,” Edwards said. “But man, it’s tough. I don’t know if it’s a measure of fair or not, but I can tell you it’s hard and it puts the pressure on. … A simple way to put it is I don’t know that I’ve felt more joy from a win than I had at Texas. That was pure joy and it was because of that format.”
