The bar has been raised

There are not many second place finishes that can come out feeling more like a victory than Sunday nights’ race in Hampton, Ga.

Carl Edwards has been rolling with a run of consistency the past eight weeks in the Sprint Cup Series.  Only one finish outside of the top-10, and five finishes inside the top-10, including two second place finishes at Chicago and Sunday’s Emory Health Care 500.  On the final pit stop last night, the Aflac Racing team busted off a 12.4 second pit stop that got Edwards out in the lead, Crew chief Bob Osborne erupted out of his seat on the pit box with emotion.  It has been a while since this team has showed that kind of performance in one race. 

It also show’s that the bar has been raised for this team with only one race left before the Chase begins.  

“If we keep running like this, we’ll win this championship,” Edwards told his team over the radio Sunday. “Keep your heads up. Keep digging like you’re doing. You guys are doing a great job. This is all we got to do. We’ve scored more points than anybody the last two months.”

In the last two months, no one has scored more points on the track than Edwards.  He has rallied from being 12th in the points standings after New Hampshire eight races ago to now being fifth in the standings with one race remaining before everything is reset for the Chase for the Championship.  Crew Chief Bob Osborne certainly believes that things have turned around, as he was estatic in his interview on the final pit stop of the race, as he slammed his fist on the side of the box in celebration for that quick 12.4 second stop that got Edwards out first.

When a team is working like this, it is hard to beat the consistency and even though Edwards will likely start out atleast 40 points behind the points leader which is likely to be Jimmie Johnson or Denny Hamlin, he has the momentum going into the Chase that will mean a lot.  During his post race press-conference, Edwards spoke about the momentum he has carried these past two months.

“I used to say it didn’t matter. I used to never believe in momentum, but I’ve never run so poorly for so long. Now, I’m seeing this turnaround and it’s been a couple of months and I think I understand the team more and I understand where we’ve been gaining, so, for that reason, I believe in this momentum that we have and I believe it will apply to future races. You can’t do anything about a cut tire or a broken valve spring or something like that, but at least we’ve proven to ourselves the last couple months that we can do it and that feels good for us.”

Improvements have been made in just about every catergory.  The team has been qualifying much better, they’ve started races out better, and had it not been for a couple of lugs being loose in Bristol, they would have 8 straight finishes in the top-ten.  Competitive cars have made the difference as well, earlier this season; the team couldn’t hardly be seen anywhere near the top-ten, much less shooting for a victory like they were last night.

“We’re heading into the Chase,” Edwards said during his interview after the event.  I feel like we locked ourselves in and I just want to thank Aflac for sticking behind us. That’s what they do, they stick behind you when things are bad. It hasn’t been good, but the last couple of months have been great. I’m excited about going to Richmond. I’m real excited about starting the Chase. We had something that could win the race tonight and that’s a blast.”