Coming off a big win at Bristol Motor Speedway, Carl Edwards heads to California this weekend looking to keep the momentum going.
“We’re hoping to run well at California,” Edwards commented. “As a group, we didn’t run really well at Vegas and we talked a lot about the things we possibly missed, so hopefully California is a turning point for us.”
At the first mile-and-a-half of the season, Edwards and the Roush-Fenway Racing group struggled, not running well as Edwards only pulled off a fifth place finish out of strategy. Teammates Greg Biffle and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ended up finishing 22nd and 27th. As a result, Edwards says this weekend will be a big test for him and the team.
“If we can go there and do well, I think it’s gonna bode well for the rest of the season,” he commented. “But that mile-and-a-half at Vegas threw us for a loop. That was not good.”
The struggles weren’t anything new or surprising, though, as RFR struggled last year on the mile-and-a-half tracks as well.
“We basically changed everything and worked really hard, and that’s what was so scary about struggling at Vegas because it was like, ‘Hey, this is the problem we’ve been addressing’,” Edwards commented. ” Now, once we went back and looked at the race and thought about it a little bit, towards the end of the race on that last restart I had the fastest car on the track for eight or 10 laps. We just kind of lost the balance there and I think we need to understand that, so there’s a big glimmer of hope and some evidence that we can do it, we just have to understand a couple of things the car is doing a little bit better.”
While the RFR group struggled at Las Vegas, Team Penske had their Fords at the front with Keselowski winning the race while Joey Logano finished fourth.
“They have been spectacular,” Edwards commented. “I think what they’ve been able to do this year is really amazing. That’s good for us in that it drives us and it makes us ask questions. We know that Doug Yates’ engines can go do the job and we know that the Ford Fusion can do it, we just have to figure out what part we’re missing as a group here at Roush Fenway and catch up with those guys. I think it’s a case where their success right now is gonna drive us. It’s kind of a sibling rivalry and makes us compete harder, so that’s good.”
There were discussions spread that Penske’s success has been a result of satellite teams doing some testing for them and sharing information across the board. With RFR having a technical alliance with Richard Petty Motorsports, you’d think they’d be doing the same thing – but Edwards says they haven’t so far.
“If that’s what they’re doing, then we need to be doing that too,” Edwards added. “But whatever they’re doing it’s working well. The interesting thing is if you look at the last couple of years it’s about peaking at the right time. We’re just a few races in and I have a feeling that 20 races in or 30 races in it’s gonna be completely different.”
