After seven complete seasons, Edwards zeroes out Nationwide events

After competing in seven full-time seasons in the NASCAR Nationwide Series and scoring the 2008 series championship, Carl Edwards will be backing out of the series in 2012.

Edwards knew that he would be backing away to a smaller schedule but in the end, decided that it was best to put forth full focus on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series program that came up just short of winning the title in 2011.

“I don’t know how it will actually affect our performance but I do know my calendar is a lot more open and I’m able to breathe a little more. And I know my family and everyone will really appreciate that [my schedule is less hectic on Fridays and Saturdays].”

Considering that the two men that have won the Sprint Cup Series title the last seven seasons, Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson have ran four or less events each of those seasons, it doesn’t seem to be a huge advantage to run the two series double duty.

Truly I learned so many things in that Nationwide car that it’s a real toss up whether or not it’ll help the [Cup] performance on Sunday,” Edwards said. “I’ve made some big mistakes on Saturday that helped me not to make them on Sunday.

“We could get 10 races in [to the season] and I could say ‘Hey, I’m better off racing on Saturdays.’ Then, it would be on me to go look for some way to put something together so that we could go race.”

As of now, after the seven seasons doing full-time; Edwards numbers are set with 37 victories, 129 top-fives, 173 top-tens, and 27 career poles in 244 career starts in the Nationwide Series.