Following 23rd and 12th place finishes to start off the season, Carl Edwards is hoping to have a strong run this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“We had a fast race car in practice,” he commented. “Really looking forward to qualifying. All of the JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) Toyotas seem pretty good and this track is more fun than I remember it. It has more bumps and a little more character. The cars are sliding around a little bit and it’s just about how I like it, so this is going to be a good weekend.”
Edwards was solid in qualifying, putting the No. 19 Comcast Business Toyota in the 14th starting spot on the grid. While he has a strong car, come raceday, it may also take a gamble to win the race, which he is willing to do if need be.
“If we can win anytime – at the point at which we feel like we’re locked in to the Chase, it definitely allows you to take gambles,” he commented. “It’s more fun to race that way too, so this format allows guys that have wins to do that. That’s what we did last year after a win at Bristol and Darian (Grubb, crew chief) and I talked about it early, before the year even started. Whatever we can do to get wins early so that we can go out there and be aggressive, get those bonus points and really just have more fun racing, that’s what we want to do.”
The 2015 season marks Edwards’ first year at Joe Gibbs Racing, and his first year working with Darian Grubb. Despite not finishing in the top-10 yet, Edwards feels that things are going really well as they get to know each other.
“Each race is a learning experience,” he noted. “I’m learning how Darian does things. The personalities are different. It’s new people. Just the way that Denny (Hamlin) and Kyle and everybody at JGR communicates, that’s new to me. I’ve just been trying to do the best I can to build those relationships, but it’s been great. We’re having fun. The cars are pretty fast and we feel like there’s a lot of room to gain as well. We don’t think as a group we’re as fast as we’re going to be by the end of the year.”
As for a timeline to when things will be right between the pair, Edwards hasn’t set one but says in the past, he has been able to adjust to a new crew chief relatively quickly. It’s all about getting the positive finishes right off the bat and a win so that way it takes the pressure off.
While he’s in a period of transition, Edwards says it hasn’t been hard to find his place at JGR despite being the new guy due to how open everybody is in the debriefs so far. That has allowed him to learn a ton about each driver’s different driving styles, and with the information flowing, it’s exciting as it offers the opportunity to learn new things.
“The way Denny drives is different than I thought he did and it’s different than what I expected and that helped me a lot at Atlanta,” he commented. “Just this weekend looking at practice, being able to lean on Matt (Kenseth) and the things he was doing and Denny both – and I haven’t even had a chance to look at David’s (Ragan) stuff – just when you have fast guys to compare things to and all the cars are fast and everyone is just trying to be P1 all the time, that’s a fun way to race.”
David Ragan enters his second race as a teammate to Edwards as he replaces the injured Kyle Busch behind the wheel of the No. 18 M&MS Camry. Edwards commends his new teammate so far, noting that Ragan was the quickest of the group in practice. Ragan backed that up in qualifying, earning the 13th starting spot.
“I think it’s a big opportunity for him,” Edwards commented. “I know that for me to be able to have a really good, solid teammate – that was a big part of or that is a big part of anybody’s race weekend is to help them speed up – and right now David is doing a great job, but I really look forward to having Kyle back with all the speed he has and the huge part of JGR that he is. He’s a guy that I can learn a lot from.”
