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Multimedia NASCAR Mini-Site - Profiles of the 2007 Cup drivers. - An interactive graphic that breaks apart the Car of Tomorrow. - A behind-the-scenes video of making a commercial. - An audio slideshow on race preparation. - A weekly schedule with audio from current Cup drivers explaining most of the race tracks on the circuit. - A video of the "Sticker Man". Site StatisticsThis page has been viewed 272022 timesPage rendered in 0.3265 seconds Total Entries: 1549 Total Comments: 257 Most Recent Entry: 11/16/2008 07:18 pm Most Recent Comment on: 11/05/2008 07:35 am Most Recent Visitor on: 11/21/2008 03:25 am |
Auto Racing
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Carl Edwards—NASCAR’s new Mr. Excitement! Just what will he do for an encore at Talladega?
By Mike Mulhern
TALLADEGA, Ala. Can’t wait to see what Carl Edwards has cooked up for the last lap of Sunday’s Talladega 500…after that wild and crazy finishing charge at Kansas City. “I’ve tried it before and knew it didn’t work,” Kyle Busch says. “He could have asked me…but he had to try it for himself. “It was cool to see. So more power to him. “I did it at Homestead in the Truck race last year. I drove it into turn three and four, behind Johnny Benson trying to win, and just drove it up to the fence and tried to ride the wall through the corner. It slows you down.” Jeff Gordon called Edwards’ slide job on Jimmie Johnson “impressive. “But that opens up a whole new can of worms in some of these races on the final lap: if Carl had to do it over again he might have chosen to do eight tires instead of four…instead of the wall.”
Kevin Harvick agreed with Gordon that Edwards’ move made that Kansas finish memorable: “I give him a lot of credit. He brings a lot of excitement to this sport. “It’s things like that, between two of the top guys in the sport, in the chase, that’s what this sport’s all about. “I applaud Carl for making the move…and I applaud Jimmie for countering the move and winning the race.” Which brings us to Sunday afternoon’s 500 miler at Talladega Superspeedway. How to play this game? “Every time we hang out in the back, we wind up getting ourselves in trouble,” Harvick says. “So we’re going to race hard. “It’s just hard to position yourself in these particular cars. It takes a little longer to get to where you need to be.” So? “Drive like your hair’s on fire,” Harvick says.
Greg Biffle, who has two wins and a third in three playoff races so far, and yet still isn’t leading the Sprint Cup standings, says racing at Talladega “is like riding that snowmobile along the bottom of the avalanche to see how courageous you’re going to be before it comes down on you.” While conventional wisdom is it’s now a three-man title chase, Harvick says Sunday’s 500 could change things. “We’re not hiding from anything,” Harvick says of his game strategy. “You just go after it and see where it all falls. “Our guys are doing a great job and being very consistent…and Jimmie Johnson is winning races and those guys are finishing in the top-three. So we’ll see how that momentum turns… “Obviously they’re going to be hard to beat. But we’re trying to control the things that we can control. And this is a great race for the chase because you really don’t know what’s going to happen. At any given moment it could turn upside down and you can trigger a pile-up. “There are a lot of things that can happen in this particular race. Talladega is its own beast “And this is not a three-week chase here. This is a 10-week chase. And I’ve been on both sides of it – I’ve seen Tony Stewart win it with no wins, and I’ve seen Jimmie Johnson be 200 or 300 points behind…. “You just don’t know how it’s going to play out.”
Kyle Busch, the best driver who won’t win the chase, says he’s not even worried about trying to get back atop the Cup standings, after his three bad weeks: “I’m not worried about what’s at the top. I’m worried about trying to get off the bottom. “About the only thing we can do is win every race from here on out….and have the other guys wreck every week to help us out.” Late-race tactics here, Busch says, are still debatable: “Towards the end of the race sometimes you can make it to the front in five laps, sometimes you can make it in three. “But with this new car I think it’s a little different. You are probably going to have to take 15 laps to get ready to go….and then there could be a wreck with 12 to go.” Jeff Gordon says one thing is certain here: “You know there’s going to be a wreck…you just don’t know who’s going to be in it. And you can’t even plan a strategy to not be in it. “So you’ve just got to go out there and race.” And Gordon knows another thing too: “I would not want the championship to come down to the end of the season with Greg Biffle leading at Homestead. That guy is so strong there, and with the confidence he has right now, and the performance those Roush cars have, I wouldn’t want to have to battle any of them—but certainly not Biffle at Homestead.”
Gordon of course just needs a win. He and Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth – all three NASCAR champions – are, remarkably, still winless this season. “Here and Martinsville definitely are two really good shots,” Gordon says of breaking that streak. “But at the same time I’m optimistic with how we performed at Kansas. That’s a 1-1/2-mile track, and we were a top-five car all day.” Edwards himself? Well, he certainly made the point at Kansas that he’s a wild card driver. “If this weren’t a points race, it would look a lot different, especially for the 12 guys in the chase,” Edwards says. “But it is a points race, so you have to race it smart. “At times I’ve thought ‘Man, that takes something away from the racing.’ But really it’s just another part of the strategy. “This chase, we’ve gotten off to a great start. But you never know what’s going to happen. We can go out and win this thing, and that would be great. But just as easily we could have trouble. “There are more chances involved in this race than probably any other on the schedule.”
And Edwards insists he’s not second-guessing Kansas: “I wish I would have drove it in harder. “I knew I felt good about my chances of making it back to the finish line. The wall is a pretty simple thing. It wasn’t like I was going in there and bouncing off Jimmie and hoping for the best. “I knew what I was up against. “I don’t care what anybody says. I did what I thought was best…and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. “I thought I could get Jimmie on the outside, but he’d seen that movie before and it wasn’t going to work out the second time. “It wasn’t until we were going down the back straight that I decided that was my only option to get in front of him. “Looking back on it, if the caution had come out while I was in front of him, we would have won.” So what is Gordon expecting in this 500? “There are some guys aggressive from lap one…some guys aggressive from halfway on. “I try to play it pretty calm, and be aggressive when I need to—when I feel it might get me out front, or into the top two or three. “If I can’t hold on to that, be patient. “It’s just that you’re drafting and bump-drafting, and it can get crazy at times. You’ve got to choose whether to be in the middle of that or not.”
Gordon insists his losing skid isn’t getting to him, and says his work at Kansas, despite fighting the flu, was solid: “Last week the driver wasn’t there. That’s just kind of the year it’s been for us. “But that effort last week to me was huge for this team. It really brought us together in a big way. We fought together through a lot of adversity to come home fourth. “With this fall weather and all the traveling I’ve been doing it was just a really bad head-cold. They put you on antibiotics and treat the symptoms. The biggest thing I needed was rest, and it’s hard to sleep when you’re coughing and your head feels like it’s about to explode. “It usually happens to me this time just about every year. “Once I got in the car I didn’t really feel that bad. I didn’t feel I could be as aggressive as I wanted, but that track was so slick aggressiveness didn’t really do you much good. “The hardest part was after the race I had to get some fluids because I was really dehydrated. I got really bad muscle cramps about 30 or 40 minutes after the race.”
Agree? Disagree? Don’t just brood. Express yourself here, and make your voice heard clearly in NASCAR headquarters in Daytona and Charlotte and in NASCAR race shops throughout North Carolina and the rest of the country.
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