DOVER, Del. –Carl Edwards won’t celebrate his 36th birthday until Aug. 19, but in last Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, he got a couple of early presents—an unexpected fuel-mileage victory in NASCAR’s longest race and an all-but-guaranteed spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs.
“We were far enough back in points, and we had not been having good luck, (so) we were going to be pretty content with ninth, 10th, somewhere in there in that race,” Edwards said of his mind-set at Charlotte. “The win was a shock, really. I don’t think it set in until – it took about 24 hours for me to really realize we can go to Dover and just hang out and have some fun.
“We don’t have to worry. We get to go to all these tracks that I really love like Sonoma and Watkins Glen, just work on stuff and have fun racing. It took me a little while to shift my mind-set from digging in and getting points runs to, ‘Hey we’re in this thing.’ It’s pretty cool.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
- NASCAR to debut new short track package at Phoenix - February 28, 2023
- The Wrench Who Stole Racing - December 16, 2022
- Matt DiBenedetto’s excellent run comes to abrupt, violent end - February 17, 2019
