Carl Edwards needs a wakeup call

Carl Edwards needs a wakeup call

 

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

 

(November 7, 2011)

 

FORT WORTH, Texas—It’s time for Carl Edwards to start paying attention.

 

It’s time for Carl Edwards to start getting mean.

 

It’s time for Carl Edwards to stop congratulating Tony Stewart after Stewart wins a race. That’s a habit he needs to break, or he’ll be doomed to repeat it at Homestead.

 

It’s time for Carl Edwards to stop being a nice guy. We all know where nice guys finish, and in the two-man race the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup has become, second place is last.

 

It’s time for Carl Edwards to realize that Stewart is racing harder and better than ever before, and it’s time for Edwards to stop being surprised by Stewart’s speed on 1.5-mile racetracks.

 

“I think really the surprising thing for all of us today was how well Tony ran here,” Edwards said Sunday evening after finishing second to Stewart in the AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. “I didn't expect him to run quite that well. Those guys, they did a really good job. It makes me think that Homestead could be a lot closer than I expected before this race.”

 

Someone needs a wakeup call.

 

Stewart ran like a speeding bullet at Las Vegas early in the season and again at Atlanta two weeks before the Chase started. He won the opening Chase race at Chicagoland. Those three tracks, along with Texas, are intermediate speedways.

 

To be surprised at Stewart’s success on those tracks is akin to Denny Hamlin and the rest of his team being surprised that most of his rivals could make it to the end of last year’s Chase race at Phoenix without running out of fuel.

 

That lack of awareness eroded Hamlin’s lead in the points and jack-hammered his psyche, priming the driver of the No. 11 Toyota for the season-ending failure at Homestead that handed Jimmie Johnson his fifth straight title.

 

On the radio after Sunday’s race, Edwards reminded his team that he still had the points lead. That was the consolation prize for the whipping he took at Stewart’s hands. On the final restart on Lap 275 of 334, Stewart timed his move perfectly, pinned Edwards’ No. 99 Ford to the bottom of the track and powered around to the outside.

 

That should have come as no surprise. Stewart did the exact same thing to Johnson a week earlier in winning the Chase race at Martinsville.

 

Stewart did something else at Texas. He won the tiebreaker. In terms of the championship, the tiebreaker is the number of race wins. Stewart has four. Edwards has one. There are two races left. Do the math.

 

Edwards leads Stewart by three points. Adjusted for the change in the points system this year, that’s still the closest margin after eight races in eight years of the Chase. That raises the possibility of a tie in the standings after the season finale at Homestead.

 

That’s one more reason Stewart said after the race, “I like our chances better than the guy with the points lead.”

 

Another is Phoenix, next Sunday’s race venue. Stewart will remind anyone willing to listen that he had the fastest time during the October full-field test at the repaved, reconfigured one-mile track. Edwards was 28th on the speed chart, nearly 4 mph slower than Stewart.

 

None of the statistics will matter, however, if Edwards doesn’t ratchet up his level of aggression. The lesson learned from Johnson’s five straight championships is that playing defense doesn’t win championships. Winning races does.

 

Unless Edwards finds a way to win one of the final two events, Stewart in all likelihood will grab the seat at the head table at the Cup awards banquet for the third time, and Edwards will watch from his seat below the stage, thinking about what might have been.