The Columbia native has a chance to catch Nextel Cup leader Tony Stewart.
He doesn’t claim to see the future, but Carl Edwards knows it’s possible.
He can see himself whipping around the last turn on the last lap of the last race of the season, tearing apart tires at 200 mph, running so close to the leader that he can count the beads of sweat trickling down his neck, knowing the difference between a championship and second place is less than a second.
Sitting in fourth place in the Chase for the Nextel Cup standings, 107 points behind leader Tony Stewart, Edwards put himself in position to make a run at the championship by winning the Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 on Sunday in Atlanta, his second win there this season. It’s only a dream right now, but Edwards knows that in order to get to that final turn, he needs to run well this Sunday in the Dickies 500 at the Texas Motor Speedway in Justin, Tex.
“I think other than going back to Atlanta, I think Texas is about as good as it gets for us right now on the schedule,” Edwards said in a teleconference Tuesday.
Of the 10 drivers competing in the chase, Edwards has the least experience at Texas with one race under his belt.
He finished 19th in the Samsung/RadioShack 500 on Apr. 17 and was one of the last drivers on the lead lap. He had a minor accident early in the race and attributed the poor finish to a lack of experience at the track.
Texas Motor Speedway, a 1 1/2 mile quad-oval track, is similar to the Atlanta track where Edwards has enjoyed his most success. But Edwards said there is a difference between the tracks. The corners in Texas flatten out earlier than normal.
“So if you’re coming off the corner, the corner drops away so that one little thing makes that setup, to me, a lot different than a place like Atlanta,” Edwards said.
Stewart fared far worse than Edwards in the series’ most recent race at Texas, finishing 31st after blowing his engine late in the race. A fire broke out in his car and Stewart suffered second-degree burns on his right leg. Stewart has never won at Texas in seven tries.
This weekend, Edwards will not be driving the same car from which he performed his signature back flip after his victory in Atlanta. Instead, crew chief Bob Osborne said the Office Depot team would debut a new “sister” car to the one he won with last weekend. Still, Osborne and Edwards said they will start Sunday’s race with the same setup as the last time they raced in Texas.
“In my eyes, though, it’s the best thing to start off the fall race where you left off the spring race,” Osborne said. “It’s a great baseline, especially if you ran extremely well.”
Edwards and Osborne said the team would likely make drastic changes over the weekend to adjust to the track and the car’s performance.
“That’s sort of been our M.O. for the season,” Edwards said.
He’s already exceeded everyone’s expectations this season, including his own. In doing so, Edwards has relished playing the role of underdog for the past two months. He said he doesn’t care what people expect of him, or think of him for that matter. But he is widely regarded as one of the most humble drivers in NASCAR, and has received plenty of compliments from other drivers. Edwards said the praise is nice but catching Stewart is his only focus right now.
“If we end up winning the thing, it’ll be the most spectacular thing that’s ever happened in my life,” Edwards said. “If we don’t, it’ll still be OK.”
That last turn would be OK, too.