CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion – YOU ARE THE ALL-TIME WIN LEADER AT TMS WITH THREE. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT GOING THERE THIS WEEKEND? “There couldn’t be a better track for us to go to. I really enjoy racing at Texas. We had a great test there the other day. I got to hang out with Eddie Gossage and a lot of folks I hadn’t seen in a while. It’s a fast race track. It’s aged a little bit, so it has some character and you can drive the car into the corner really aggressively and slide it around a lot. That makes it really fun to drive and when you have success at Texas the folks there really make it special. Everything is a lot of fun, from winning the pole to winning the race it’s a really great place to race.”
IS MATT THE KIND OF GUY YOU PULL FOR A LITTLE BIT EVEN THOUGH HE’S NO LONGER ON YOUR TEAM? “First of all, Matt and I, we obviously didn’t get along really well at one point, but, to me, he’s one of the guys I’m closest with in the garage. I really think a lot of Matt and once I understood him and I assume he understood me a little better, I think that we were as good a teammates as I’ve ever had, so I think a lot of Matt. I think he was a huge asset to our team. It is interesting to watch him in this championship battle. There are times where it’s still hard for me to think of him as not my teammate because of how much time we spent under the same roof, so, yeah, to me, as much as I hate to see him do well at another organization – I wish he was doing it here – I think it’s good to see him have the success because he definitely works hard and has given his life to racing.”
ISN’T THIS ESSENTIALLY THE RIDE YOU PASSED UP A YEAR EARLIER? DO YOU KIND OF DO THE FACE-PALM THING? “No, no. That’s a lot of assumption from the media perspective. If you go by what everything that was written I had already signed contracts with that team and stuff, so I think that’s presumptuous on a couple of levels. No offense to you personally, but I think that idea is that way and, at the end of the day, I drive the No. 99 Fastenal Ford for Jack Roush and I do that because I want to and, yes, like a lot of guys in the garage I’ve had opportunities at multiple times in my career and I’ve chosen the one that I wanted to be a part of, so really that’s not something that I think about too much at all.”
CAN YOU REFLECT ON HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO WIN A CHAMPIONSHIP AND WHAT HAS TO FALL TOGETHER TO PUT YOU IN THAT POSITION? “It is very difficult to win a championship. That is my number one goal. That’s my mission. That’s what I want to do in this sport and we’ve been very close. We tied for second in 2005. We actually did really well in 2008, but Jimmie Johnson got us, and then that battle with Tony was unlike anything I had ever been a part of and, other than not winning it, it was the most fun thing I’ve been a part of in my career as a race car driver, so it changed my outlook on every little point, and I think for a lot of people in the garage. They point to that season and that Chase and say, ‘Man, every single point matters.’ You always know that and everyone says it, but that really galvanized it, so that was a battle and I hope I’m in a number of battles like that in the future. I still remember that week after Phoenix going to Homestead. It was more than exciting. It was just perfect. It was a lot of fun and hopefully I can be a part of that again.”
CAN YOU COMMENT ON THE INEVITABILITY OF JIMMIE BEING CONSTANTLY PART OF SOMETHING THAT IS SO DIFFICULT? “That’s a great way to describe Jimmie Johnson is inevitable – or I guess his performance. But, yeah, they are amazing. That’s one of the things that I think is going to make this championship this year for whoever wins it, I think it’s gonna make it very special because you are going to have to beat Jimmie Johnson. If it’s Matt Kenseth or Jeff Gordon or Kevin Harvick or even somebody further back. I know we’re still mathematically able, and that’s what you want – that’s what I would want. I would want to beat a guy like Jimmie and I’d want to beat him and Chad and those guys when they’re on their game. So it is amazing what they’re able to do. I think everyone in the garage looks up to them, I know they do, and people talk about championship rivalries and someone put it really well the other day they said, ‘The best rivalry that’s gone on the best decade has been the field vs. Jimmie Johnson,’ and that’s where we’re at right now. Those guys are really good.”
ARE YOU SURPRISED A MATT’S LEVEL OF SUCCESS THIS YEAR? “I’m not surprised by it and that’s because I’ve seen how much Matt pours into his driving and over the years I’ve seen how fierce of a competitor he is. I mean, he’s a relatively quiet guy and he’s pretty understated, but he really, really drives the wheels off a race car from the start of the race weekend to when the checkered flag falls. If you look at the organization, the Gibbs guys have statistically been very good the last few years, so it just seems like everything worked out and him and his crew chief and everyone are working well together and a couple of those races this year they did have some really good luck. They had some bad luck, too, but it appears to be one of those years where a great driver and a great team and great luck are all coming together and they’re making the most of it. I can tell you one thing, Matt won’t make mistakes. He will not lose the championship. He’ll be one of the strongest parts of that team, in my opinion.”
DO YOU SEE ANY DIFFERENCE IN HIS DRIVING STYLE THIS YEAR? “I don’t notice any difference in his driving style, it just appears that whatever they’re doing – I don’t talk to him about any technical stuff anymore – but it just appears from the outside that whatever they’re doing suits the way he drives. I don’t want to take too much liberty with my analysis, but I see Matt as a guy who has it figured out. In my opinion, I don’t think he’s learned new tricks or has changed his driving style, I just think he appears to be applying the same work ethic and effort that he always has and it’s just working better this year.”
WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE TEXAS TRACK THAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER 1.5-MILE TRACKS? “I think the thing that makes Texas different is the track itself. I think the surface of the race track, and it’s becoming a rarity or it’s becoming rare to have a surface like that. It’s a lot like Darlington used to be, a lot like Atlanta is now, where the surface is worn out, bumpy, multiple grooves, takes a lot of rubber, it’s gonna change throughout the race, the sun is gonna go down. That makes it a really neat race and makes it different and really hard. It makes it hard in that you’ve got to make the car perfect at the end and you don’t really have any time to waste in that you’ve got to do it during pit stops on the fly. And it’s a long race, it’s a tough one that’s tough on everything – the engines, the tires, the cars, the drivers and the crews. To me, it feels a little bit more old school. There’s gonna be a lot of people moving forward and a lot of people falling back throughout the day and the night and I think that’s fun. I like that part of racing where it’s dynamic, the whole event.”
YOU WORK SO HARD JUST TO GET IN THE CHASE AND THEN WHEN YOU GET THERE IT’S EVEN MORE DIFFICULT. HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THAT? “To me, I’ve only been doing this for eight or nine years at the Cup level and it is two or three times as difficult to run well on a regular basis right now than it was when I started in 2004 and 2005. So, number one, making the Chase is very, very difficult and any bad luck along the way can put you in a really precarious spot and cause a lot of stress leading into Richmond, and then once you make the Chase there’s no time to breathe. The very next week you go and you race and it appears at times that the top 10 spots can be literally all Chase racers, so you’ve got to run at an extremely high level to have a shot at winning a championship. So there’s the bottleneck you have to get through to get to the Chase and then once it starts somehow everybody is able to grab another gear and step it up another notch and it gets really tough.”
OVER TIME DO YOU THINK THE CAREERS OF DRIVERS WILL BE SHORTENED A BIT DUE TO THIS DIFFICULTY? “I don’t know that their careers will be shortened, but I guarantee you the fitness level will go up because you’ve got to stay fit, you’ve got to stay sharp. There’s really no time to rest, not just for the drivers but for everyone. If you take a time lapse photo of the people walking in the gate at each event and ran it through the year, you’ll see that it wears everyone down. It’s a long season. Even you guys. The media, you guys know how it is, it’s a long season, it’s tough on everyone and when you add to that the increased level of competition, I think you’re right, it is tougher now to do year in and year out than it used to be and that’s why guys like Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin – those guys that are able to perform at such a high level year after year – it’s pretty spectacular.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE MOOD AFTER DOVER WHEN YOU HAD TO GO THE GARAGE EARLY WITH A PROBLEM AND REALIZE EVERYTHING YOU WORKED SO HARD FOR IS GONE IN 30 SECONDS? “I don’t know who it was that labeled all the steps you go through until you reach acceptance, but I know the first one is denial. So you go through all of that. I was out there running at Dover and we knew going into the Chase we had not been a dominant team. We had gutted it out and fought and scratched to be at the top of the heap and led the points after Richmond. We had two wins, but we knew that we were gonna have to really be consistent and not make any mistakes in the Chase, and the first couple of races didn’t go very well. We went to Dover and we were hanging on. We were in contention and when that wheel came loose I knew we had a problem and my heart sank. Everybody on the crew, crew chief, everyone knew that was gonna be really hard to recover from and it has been. If you look at the guys in front of us – all nine guys in front of us – there aren’t very many mistakes in that group and at this level, right now at this point in the sport, you can’t have those kind of mistakes, so if we can go out and win the next three races and a lot of guys have a lot of bad luck, then we might be able to earn some of that back, but it’s really tough and those moments it takes a lot to be able to keep your head up and just keep moving forward because they are very disappointing.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT THE EBB AND FLOW IS LIKE FOR A DRIVER WEEK TO WEEK, ESPECIALLY IN THE CHASE? “It’s very interesting. I know for me when I’ve been in those championship battles time really slows down and when I was in those positions myself I’ve been very conscious of each week and the different issues that you have to face at each track. For instance, when you head to Talladega and you’re leading the points, you’re very focused on not having issues. You’re very focused on not making mistakes and getting caught up in a wreck, and then you go to a place like Martinsville and you’re ultra-focused on qualifying and track position and getting the bottom line on the restarts, so, to me, the pressure crescendos and everything is rising the whole time from start to finish, but when you get down to these last few races it really becomes very pointed each day. Each problem is a big deal and there’s nothing else you think about. Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, those guys are going to Texas and they are gonna know every single thing about their car. They’re gonna have a plan for everything and they’re really not gonna have much time for anything else in their lives and it’s really a fun way to go racing because you’re so focused and there’s so much on the line. It’s really exciting as a driver.”
HOW IS THAT FUN WITH ALL THAT PRESSURE? “None of us would be here and be doing this if we didn’t like that situation. To me, that’s as good as it gets. I’ll never forget, I didn’t expect it to be that much fun and then in 2011 that week leading up to Homestead I was driving along in my truck, I don’t know where I was coming from, but I was headed home from running an errand and I was just going through that race in my mind and thinking about it and thinking about all of the things I needed to work on and think of and it’s fun. It’s what you dream of when you’re a young kid and you’re hanging out at your local dirt track watching people race. You just dream of being in that position of having a shot at it. That’s what it’s about. So, for me, I didn’t expect it to be that much fun, but I really did enjoy it.”
