| | | | | | TARGET ON BACK? | Edwards not claiming he's
the driver to beat at Phoenix | |
| | By SceneDaily Staff AVONDALE, AZ -- Roush Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards has won three of the season's opening seven races. Yet, he refuses to entertain talk that he is the driver to beat this season.
Edwards is off to a stellar start. He’s ninth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings despite incurring a 100-point penalty for a rules infraction and finishing 42nd with an engine failure in a race he was leading.
From a competitive viewpoint, Edwards’ group is the best in the garage. This season, they are the team that has mastered NASCAR’s new car and seem to be the only group capable of consistent performances on the series’ 1.5-mile ovals.
Still, Edwards sidesteps questions concerning whether he has the top team in the series.
“It’s awfully early in the season,” he said Thursday at Phoenix International Raceway. “Our Ford Fusions are so good right now that it’s really a joy to drive them, but if there’s one thing that’s certain this season, it’s there’s going to be change. Things are going to happen throughout the season. People are going to change things, and hopefully we can stay on top of that change and be just as fast at the end as we are now.”
He does not, however, dance around any talk about how strong his team is. Crew chief Bob Osborne is serving a six-race suspension for the rules infraction, but Roush Fenway chief engineer Chris Andrews and general manager Robbie Reiser are ably filling the void and working with the team on race weekends.
So while he shies from discussing his own potential, Edwards is more than happy to talk about how strong that group is.
“I feel like I’ve got the best car out there right now, and I’ve just got to drive it the best I can,” he said. “The way it’s going so far, if I do my job right and communicate to the guys, we’ve got a really fast race car.”
Still, they are keeping a close eye on the competition. Edwards recognizes that these cars are so similar that it doesn’t take long for teams to catch up to one another with it.
He also knows his own team has to stay on top of researching it and testing it so that it doesn’t fall off the pace. Everyone is learning about the model formerly known as the car of tomorrow.
That includes his team. While they’re on top of their game right now, they cannot afford to be idle and enjoy their performance.
“Listen, I’m well aware that it takes everything being perfect in these cars to go fast, and we’ve got to stay on top of that because some of the guys that are struggling, it’s not because of the way they’re driving the cars, it’s because it’s something they haven’t got figured out, and that could happen to us just as well,” Edwards said. "There have been a bunch of times where we’ve been lost. At the beginning of the year, it seemed like every time we were lost, so I’m aware of that and we’ve got to stay on top of it. It’s a knife edge. You’ve got to have everything perfect.”
| | Posted April 11, 2008 , 4:22 pm EST
Last Updated April 11, 2008 , 4:22 pm EST | | | | | | | | | | |
