Carl Edwards started the 2011 season thinking about what he could have done differently to win the Daytona 500 after finishing second to Trevor Bayne. He ends the season in the same way when it comes to winning the race and the championship.
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[/media-credit]“Well, the effort was all season,” said Edwards. “We finished the last two races of last season very strong and we believed in what we were capable of this year and I think we proved to ourselves that even with adversity and the things that we faced through the Chase, the bad runs that we had and the mistakes we made and recovered from, that we can compete for these championships. I guess the only thing that I’m able to take away from this that’s really positive is something I thinks important, is that we can compete with these people.”
Through the Chase Edwards was able to compete with Stewart, now a three-time champion who won half the races, and score the same amount of points. To Edwards, that’s a big deal and it was another huge test for him in the journey of life.
“The last three or four weeks have been a huge test for me and my team mentally,” he said. “For us to keep our confidence up and keep our cool and go out and do our jobs, I am really proud of that. That is it. That is my maximal effort right there and Tony beat us. He is a champion and deserves to be the champion. He did a good job and now we will go home and work even harder and if we are faced with the same test next year hopefully we will do even better.”
Edwards finished second in Homestead-Miami to Tony Stewart, leaving him a tie for the Sprint Cup Series championship. Stewart won his third championship because the tiebreaker was wins. Stewart had five, Edwards one. The hardest part was that Edwards led the points for majority of the year and through most of the Chase, holding a three point advantage heading into Sunday afternoon.
Both drivers did everything they needed to do to win the title. Edwards started the weekend by winning the pole and then leading the most laps. Stewart though, led the lap that counted most, doing what he needed to in order to beat Edwards. The two put on what might go down as one of the best Chases in history, certainly to date.
For Edwards though, it couldn’t be more heartbreaking. After learning everything he could from Jimmie Johnson the last few season, finishing second to him in 2008 after winning nine races, he thought he was in the perfect position. Heading to his best track, Edwards and the No. 99 Aflac Roush Fenway Racing team had put everything they could to put them in position to win their first championship.
As the last 20 laps wound down though, he was left chasing Stewart as he and the championship drove away. Except, Edwards fought to the very end. It was over until the checkered flag flew, a lesson he says he learned racing teammate and Nationwide Series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in Iowa a few months ago.
“I was fully prepared for Tony to run out fuel or have a tire problem or for anything to happen,” said Edwards. “For a caution to come out and have a restart and that is all I can do. That is my job, to be prepared as I can be. I didn’t really let myself think about the consequences of what was going on, I just had to drive the hardest I could and I did. I drove to edge and beyond and that is all I had.”
Unfortunately it wasn’t enough, even with a 4.9 average in the Chase. With the championship coming down to the most unlikely of scenarios, a tie, Edwards was able to joke that he would do anything to break that tie right now. Instead, he says he’ll walk back to his motorhome and be the best loser that he can, providing a good example for his two small children.
“I wish I could do this every day,” said Edwards about the situation he was in this year. “There are lessons that I learned and things that I learned about myself, about competition, about failure, about success – things that I could not have learned away other way. If there wasn’t any pressure, there wouldn’t be any diamonds. That’s what my trainer says. We dealt with a lot of pressure and I feel very proud of the way our team and myself and everyone has handled everything through this.”
It has made them all better, strong says Edwards. It leaves him with a great feeling heading into 2012, that he will win the title should he be in this position again. It might be hard to find Edwards in a better position than he was in 2011 when he was the man to beat nearly every week. Things were going his way, his team battled hard to minimize their bad days and they ended up being the favorites.
Losing the championship on the final day of the season after running what he says were the best races of his life, is disappointing. Stewart just came with a vengeance and flat out beat him for the championship. Edwards can move on knowing that he didn’t lose it or give it away, they were fairly beat.
And while Edwards had statistics on his side, which would have won him just about any other Chase, he takes it and moves on. The hope is that the team’s disappointment will propel them into the offseason and push them to work harder.
“We performed very well,” said Edwards of 2011. “I feel like over the whole season we performed really well. I don’t know if anyone scored more points in the whole season than we did, I’m not sure about that, but there’s a lot of pride in that. We did that in 2008 and I think we did that now. We just performed the best we can. Every week we put out the best effort we can and we were only one point shy. That’s just the way it is.”
