Lady Luck Smiling on Carl Edwards? – NASCAR opinion
A speeding penalty which puts you back in 25th position and a lap down with over half the race gone. The race is over for most drivers at this stage. Carl Edwards somehow salvages a 3rd place finish from
that scenario.
Getting the wrong setup from the start of the race and being lapped by your fellow Chase racers. Game over? Carl Edwards finished 5th.
This has been the story of Carl Edward’s Chase so far. He can do no wrong and has been the most consistent driver this season. He has carried his consistency in the Chase as well. He finished 4th in Chicagoland and followed it up
with an 8th in Loudon. He then somehow took 3rd place at Dover and performed another miracle by finishing 5th in Kansas.
Even before the Chase started, Edwards had the most top 10 finishes alongside Jimmie Johnson. This tremendous run has seen Edwards top of the table, 1 point ahead of Kevin Harvick. But Edwards will not be getting complacent as only 20 points separate the
top 8 drivers and it will only take a few bad days to put him right down at the bottom.
With the new points’ system rewarding consistency over race wins, Edwards seems to be on the right track for the 2011 Championship. He has looked strong in all the races in the Chase so far and is 7/1 to win the Cup this year, second only to Jimmie Johnson.
And Edward’s greatest threat will be coming from the resurging Johnson. Johnson has shown in the past that he is just as capable of stringing together a good, consistent run of results and with only 4 points separating him and Edwards, he will be hoping
for his 6th consecutive title.
Edwards will be looking back to the 2008 season where he finished second to Jimmie Johnson in the Sprint Cup. That season, he had NASCAR deduced 110 points off him for rules violation and eventually finished 69 points behind him. Edwards will count himself
unlucky to have missed out that year.
This year, however, luck seems to be on his side. Edwards knows that he should be nowhere near the top after the incidents in the last two races. But one can argue that he was the fastest driver at Dover and had he not been hit with that speeding penalty,
he would have won the race. So while luck has been with him, what has really impressed the eye is Edward’s ability to come back from such dire situations. He just sticks to his task and even with an ill handling car, he is able to finish in the top 5.
Edwards said after the race at Dover that he believed that whoever wins the Championship will have to win a race or two in the Chase. But with consistent performances like his, he does not need to win races. Each driver will have bad days and incidents occur
that are out of their control. Edwards will be hoping he has safely navigated at least two of those incidents to him and will now be looking at the other drivers and how they fare in the upcoming races.
Next up on the schedule is the Bank of America 500 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Edwards has never won a Cup race at the track and finished 16th there earlier in the 2011 season. He will be hoping to avoid a similar result this time around and will be aware that any further mistakes in the Chase could deal a severe blow to
his title chances. If he can steer clear of mistakes, he should be the new NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion come Homestead.
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