What’s on My Mind

Today’s IZOD Indy Car event Las Vegas was suppose to be a celebration for a championship.  It turned out to be the mourning of a champion, a great person and friend to many.

Dan Wheldon passed away after a major crash that took out 15 cars in the mass of a high speed accident.  When a driver like Dan Wheldon goes, it doesn’t just effect one series, it effects the entire world of auto racing.  Wheldon was an admired racer and consider a great friend, husband and father, and he always had that smile on his face.  I watched the crash when it occurred and knew someone was going to come out with major injuries or worse.  Indy Car racing has been considered one of the more danger forms of racing, and a lot comes from an open cockpit, a light weight, high speed chassis and cars running in tight packs on high speed ovals. 

When a driver loses his life, it is something no one likes to see.  These men are one of their own kind.  There are always great athletes but we never put into consideration the risk that race car drivers put themselves into every weekend that they pull onto a race track.  Whether or not it is a stock car or an open wheel driver, or even a drag racer.  There are risk that they take, more than any other athletes in the world.  The only thing I would even compare with to the risks of racing is a bull rider.  There are injuries in all sports, but risks come more when you are piloting a car that runs 200 mph plus around a high speed oval.  Wheldon was one of those risk takers, a driver with a lot of passion and dedication to his job, but most importantly he had family as a focus more than anything else.

I think back to the drivers that this sport has lost to race caused injuries but I don’t remember them for how they went out, but for who they were.  It is something that many people must grasp onto and realize that when a driver goes it spreads across the entire auto racing world, today I was on twitter and several of my favorite drivers from NASCAR posting that they were feeling the effects of Wheldon’s death.  I also read comments from terrible fans that were criticizing officials and Indy Car drivers for cancelling the race due to a driver’s death.  These people are those that do not know the real meaning of being a driver or being a real fan, these guys have emotions and with the heavy emotions that they were carrying after losing a great colleague in this sport, you can’t get behind the wheel of one of those race cars and expect to perform to your best standards. 

“We all had a bad feeling about this place in particular just because of the high banking and how easy it was to go flat. And if you give us the opportunity, we are drivers, and we try to go to the front. We race each other hard because that’s what we do,” driver Oriol Servia said. “We knew if could happen, but it’s just really sad.”

It is a reminder to people who have grown comfortable with the safety of this sport and thought that the days of tragedy were done and over, that it is not.  Racing is by far at the top of the list when you put its dangerous speed and everything else out on the track.  It has come a very long way since the 90s, and you can consider that it is a lot safer than it was when Greg Moore died in a terrible accident at Fontana, California in 1999.  Last night when Jimmie Johnson crashed into the wall at Charlotte, it looked terrible.  It was a hard hit, but a stock car takes a lot more than an open wheel style car, and there is more protection surrounding a driver.  Jimmie walked away with just a small limp, and it showed that NASCAR had done its battle to get rid of some of the dangers of a crash.

Drivers have bigger fears than death when driving, the fears of losing, the fears of not having a job, family.  When you strap yourself into a race car, you can’t race with fear of death.  I think so many people can’t come to grips that drivers are of a different breed than any other athlete and have to be.  But when they lose a friend it takes more out of them than anyone can imagine while racing.  The challenge of racing with a heavy heart is something no one would like to face.  Trevor Bayne came across twitter “I’m sick at my stomach right now over Dan Wheldon. I just hung out w/ him a month ago and he was such an awesome guy w/ so much life in him”

Randy Bernard announced Wheldon’s death nearly two hours after the accident had happened and that the race was cancelled.  The drivers did a five lap tribute to Dan, and I salute these men for what they did for their fallen man.

So to those that criticized a series for cancelling a race for something like this, you are the ones that I feel need some lessons.  I applaud the series for cancelling a race in this matter, we need to think of friends and family in these times and remember the true people that suffer from something as tragic as this.  Dan’s wife Susie, his two sons Sebastion and Oliver.  We will always remember you Dan, you were a great role model in racing and in life.

Last Saturday, Bob Osborne was faced with a decision to make.  Take a gamble on the front chassis of his drivers’ No. 99 Ford Fusion, or leave it alone.  He chose the gamble.

That gamble did not pay off for the crew chief on Sunday afternoon.  Carl Edwards started from the outside of the front row, but quickly dropped back through the field in the event, and noticed from the second lap on that his car was way too tight in the center of the corner.  A lot of fans do not realize the factors that go into setting up a race car, and how it can be so good in practice on Saturday and then turn to being a disaster on Sunday.  These race cars in a way have a mind of their own, and are very tempermental.  You can have a race car handle with perfection during the cool hours of the day, but when the temperatures change, it is a very different animal.  I have seen a car handle terrible in the heat of the day, but it came alive in the cooler night hours.

Those things are something that most fans don’t take into their head when thinking how something as small as a chassis shim can make a race car handle 5 times better.  Crew chiefs are faced with more pressure than just about anyone else on that race team.  Why you ask?  They make the decisions on what could or couldn’t make a race car handle with the rest of the field. 

“It’s a balancing act, and we for sure did not make the right changes to start this race,” crew chief Bob Osborne said. “There’s no doubt about it. We made the wrong ones, and it showed early on.

“You’re trying to make the car better and better and better every opportunity you get and we just flat missed it on our overnight adjustments.”

There is that risk for reward factor.  Had the change worked, they could have been up front all day and battling the 48 car for the victory, but the risk did not pay off for the team on Sunday, however; they did leave with a one point margin in the standings.  It was two races before the Chase began that even the defending five time champions team made the wrong call in Atlanta, yet were able to recover with a second place finish.  Race cars are very hard to find the right setup on, and very easy to throw off.  You factor in all that can be done to a race car during the term of a complete race.  A wedge adjustment, tire pressure, spring rubber, brake bias, sway bar adjustments.  There are a lot of things during a race that can change how a car can handle.

One thing many fans do not factor in is weather.  Weather can be a crew chief’s biggest enemy.  It is a consistent changer in how that temper changes in a car.

Chad Knaus pointed out in post race press conferences that the cars today have much more that can upset them. 

“The race car that we’ve got now is extremely fickle, and it’s very difficult to sometimes get the balance of a race car, and then once you get it, it’s very easy to lose it,” Knaus said. “For instance, Friday, we were extremely, extremely tight, made huge, huge swings with the race car to try to free it up and couldn’t do it in practice.

“So getting ready to qualify, we made just, I think, three super tiny changes to the car and just said, ‘OK, let’s just go and see what happens,’ and the car went extremely, extremely loose, and obviously qualified 19th, which was obviously subpar.

“So it’s very, very difficult.”

And he wished fans and media could feel the pain of a crew chief.

“I wish you guys could feel the pain sometimes, to be quite honest with you,” Knaus said. “… It’s tough, I wish people realized and knew how tough it really was

On Sunday, Edwards left the race with that points lead and a solidly earned fifth place finish in the event.  However, the one thing that he did not do was give up on his team and crew chief’s knowledge.  Osborne decided to make adjustments to the right front suspension and add two shims to the steering, which helped add to the steering characteristics of the car. 

It is a team effort that if this organization pulls through and wins the title, they can look back on this one as the race that could have won it for them.

I called it when the Chase began.  Carl Edwards was taking that silent but deadily approach in the Chase and he has done just that so far going into this weekend’s race at Kansas Speedway.  Edwards has scored a fourth, an eighth, and a third place effort in the Chase so far, and is tied for the series points lead with Kevin Harvick.

If any driver runs great on mile and a half ovals, it is Carl Edwards.  He has been one of the best on the circuit at finishing up front on the cookie cutter venues.  Edwards won his last race at Las Vegas, a sister track to Kansas’s layout and appeared to have one of the best cars at Chicagoland a few weekends ago before gas mileage became a race changing moment.  I look at what is left on the schedule for the Chase and Carl Edwards has two tracks that could be a problem for the 99 team, one is at Talladega in three weeks, and the other event comes a weekend later in Martinsville.  The rest of the schedule is in the 99 teams’ favor.  Edwards is consistently one of the best at Kansas(11.4 avg./no wins), Charlotte(13.3 avg./no wins), Texas(16.5 avg./4 wins), Phoenix(13.0 avg./1 win) and Homestead(5.7 avg./2 wins).  Edwards has been strong this season at the restrictor plate venues, although in July he was taken out early in the event by a teammate’s mistake.

I heard a comment earlier about how every put the focus on the Eagles entering the season in pro football and its the Packers that are showing their muscle under the radar.  Edwards is doing exactly the samething, quietly and significantly.  You have to think about the way that the media downed him before the Chase came in, and Carl Edwards said last winter that he did not want to be considered the favorite to knock Jimmie Johnson off the thrown.  Edwards has worked through all the soft issues this season and when it came time to decide whether to go to a different organization or stay where he was at, he decided to stay put at Roush Fenway Racing, because he felt that it was the best place to win a series championship.

Carl Edwards and Fastenal will be part of the Sprint Cup Series begining in 2012 (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images for NASCAR)

This morning Fastenal announced that it would be moving from the Nationwide Series with Carl Edwards to the Sprint Cup Series for 17 races in 2012.  Fastenal has been a sponsor for Edwards since 2010, and been a sponsor in NASCAR since their first stint in the Camping World Truck Series in 2006.  There is no word on who will fill in the blank of the remaining 19 races on the schedule, as Aflac appears to be lowering its deal down

“I’ve appreciated the long relationship that I’ve had with Fastenal,” Edwards said “I’m proud that they believe so strongly in our team and program that they are making the commitment to sponsor us in the Sprint Cup Series.

“My partnership with Fastenal started in 1999 at my local dirt track. I would have never imagined that we would be going to the 2012 Daytona 500 together.”

Edwards will begin piloting the No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion at the 2012 Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in February.  There has been no word what races they will be the sponsor in for Edwards next season, and what the value of the sponsorship is.

Fans worried?  Media not talking?  Yeah that’s been the case for about the last 6 races on the schedule for Carl Edwards and his team. 

Edwards and Osborne stand to discuss practice at Charlotte Motor Speedway in October of 2010 (Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images)

It is a case of preparation for the Chase.  While wins are important, Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus have been known to slide under the radar for a bit during the regular season and then show up all of a sudden in a blink of an eye in the Chase and steal the show.  Now, has Carl Edwards and Bob Osborne taken the same page out of the 48 team’s winning book to try and beat them at their own game? 

Edwards has been very quiet while approaching each race.  He has not led many laps, he has had a couple of struggling events during the season; however, he has approached the regular season as a test for the final ten races.  This weekend’s race at Atlanta is probably one of the better places for Edwards to start showing his muscle in a full speed battle on the 1.54 mile, high banked quad oval.  In the last 8 years, no one has seen more success at Atlanta

Edwards has scored three wins at the track and has been very good at running up front at Atlanta.  When it comes to high banked intermediate tracks, he gets the job done as good if not better than anyone else on the schedule.  Looking at the Chase, the schedule probably favors the Missouri drivers style because of the ten tracks in the Chase, five are on intermediate 1.5 mile tracks, there is a restrictor plate race, a short track event, and three races on one mile tracks, one at Dover that might is well fit the style of a fast intermediate track.

In the ten tracks that the series races will race at in the Chase, Carl Edwards has wins at

• Dover – 1
• Texas – 3
• Phoenix – 1
• Homestead – 2

Everything will spread out once the Chase starts and if Edwards performs better inside the Chase because of the research that he and Osborne have been doing before it all starts, they will be considered geniuses on the track. In the past, Carl Edwards has gone into the Chase with a lot of pressure(2008) and had several races that put him behind the eight ball.  Edwards has been very quiet on and off the track, and he said it last year that he didn’t want to be considered the favorite to knock Jimmie Johnson off of the top spot.  He and his crew chief Bob Osborne just might be doing it in the 48′s fashion. 

With the car research that the team has been doing over the last five or six weekends there could be a major run planned inside the Chase.  Edwards has struggled on flat tracks throughout his entire career, however, his strong point has been racing on the intermediate quad and tri-oval venues.  Many call them the cookie cutter tracks of NASCAR.  Edwards made a comment a couple of weeks ago that the team was going all out at Michigan and Atlanta, however, using races at Bristol and Richmond to get prepped for the short track event at Martinsville.  Atlanta is the next race on the schedule, and it might be considered Carl Edwards’ home away from home.  He won both his first career Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series events at the track in 2005, and he’s scored two other victories at the track in Sprint Cup. 

Who is the media talking about to win the title?  Right now it seems all the attention is pointed at Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski.  But remember last year?  Denny Hamlin came into the Chase with a heap of momentum and faltered down the line later on, same for Kyle Busch in 2008.  Momentum doesn’t always mean it’s good when the series has ten races left to race.  You certainly don’t want to get too hot, too early.  Carl has kept himself warm enough to stay amongst the contenders and had it not been for a bad spark plug in Michigan, Edwards could likely still be leading the points standings.

So those that don’t like the fact that the team has been researching, here is what I’ve got to tell you.  It’s worked for the 48 car the last 5 seasons, why couldn’t it work for the 99?

Bad luck, a bad spark plug, and a few other things have cost Carl Edwards some points over the course of the last few weeks.  The debate has raged on and on about whether or not not Carl Edwards is still in the fight for the championship.  Answer is, yes, no matter what opinionated people want to think.

I am just going to use an example of how drivers and their teams can be struggling at this point in the season and then make a dramatic recovery over the last ten races.  Jimmie Johnson’s first championship season in 2006 is one that I can remember very well.  He had four races over the last six before the Chase started that were outside of the top-ten and many were wondering what was going on with JJ and his team.  He recovered and won his first title.  Last year, same scenario and Jimmie Johnson won his fifth straight championship.

Now we are discussing two different drivers but could we be reasonable here.  Carl and his team has been sitting up at the top of the points standings for much of this season until the last two weekends.  I just love how people speculate on what has gone wrong, and say that Bob Osborne should be fired, that the entire crew should be let go and another group of guys hired.  That isn’t the case in my opinion.  These guys have put Carl Edwards in line for several wins this season – it just did not work out for them.   There are three races before the Chase begins and one thing I am looking at is, now the media isn’t focused on Edwards, they have their minds focused upon Kyle Busch.  The less the media talks about Carl the better in my opinion.  I have never liked going into the Chase as the favorite to win it, its about the same as the favorite to enter the NFL playoffs and then fall flat on your face in the first game.

The team has one win and sits fourth in the points standings right now.  I said it last weekend that these next few weekends were a good time to experiment with things that they aren’t sure about before the Chase begins.  Edwards is one of those drivers that doesn’t believe in momentum and knows that things can turn around very quick.  But I have been wondering for the last few weeks, has the team been holding their cards back until the Chase begins?

Was Bob Osborne one of the major keys to Carl Edwards re-signing with Roush?(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Many might remember it was a couple of months ago when I wrote that drivers shop around but sometimes do not buy the product.  This time with Carl Edwards it was one of those situations.  Many media personnel thought that it was signed and sealed that Edwards was going to Toyota and Joe Gibbs on behalf of a deal that was laid down by Gibbs’ sponsor Home Depot.  Rumor had it that Home Depot had given Gibbs a blank check to get Edwards to sign, alert the media – it FAILED. 

Jack Roush and his organization did something what very few teams would do for any of their drivers.  Roush gave out very important information from his most expert employee’s minds.  Jack Roush said it himself, had Edwards not have signed with him, that would have been very important information that he would have given out to his driver. 

But one thing Edwards did not do was take the bait and go to Gibbs.  You have to look at key areas where Roush has been beating JGR at, and one is in reliability.  It was just last week when all the motor mouth’s were speaking about Edwards leaving that Denny Hamlin’s Toyota went up in smoke right in front of Edwards’ car.  Did that perhaps set off an alarm in Edwards’ mind?  Possibly, who will ever know except for Carl.

Then there is that one keyword – Loyalty.  In this sport, that is a word that is getting to be used very little.  Mark Martin stuck it out for over 20 years at Roush, and Dale Earnhardt was at RCR for the same period.  Jeff Gordon is running on that same time frame with Hendrick Motorsports.  You have to read through the lines and realize that when a driver sticks with a team as Edwards did his, over the fact that an offer that was rumored to be huge and monumental; there had to be an even bigger reason for staying.    That all is put down by that one little five letter word.  Carl Edwards remained “loyal” to Jack Roush and the same can be said the other way around. 

Gibbs fans can sit and respond to what I have to say, however, fact is Gibbs would not be a better place for Carl Edwards than where he is at.  I look at the top-drivers that Gibbs has in Hamlin and Busch and both are very high tempered and emotional drivers, and then had you thrown Carl Edwards in that mix, it would have certainly put too many “roosters in the hen house.” 

“I just decided this is the right place for me,” said Edwards, “If I would have made that decision three months ago, I might have had more second thoughts,” he said. “It took time for me to come to that conclusion. There wasn’t one thing that changed my mind.”

As I said in my other article, drivers do shopping around and many could have speculated on what Carl Edwards was going to do in his future but only he knew what he was going to do.  I was one of those fans that were in speculation over what he was going to do, and truthfully, I thought that he was going to take the money and run up until weekend before last when Ford put an offer down.  In Carl Edwards’ career with Roush, he has put up spectacular numbers that many would consider career accomplishments – with 59 total victories (19 Sprint Cup, 34 Nationwide and 6 Truck Series), and a Nationwide Series championship. 

Here is the other big decision maker I think.  Ford Motor Company.  Ford has been the longest lasting racing manufacturer in NASCAR.  They were the ones that came up with the slogan “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday,” and when you look right now at the spokesmen that Ford have at its hands, Carl Edwards is the right man.  When put up against any other driver on the track when it comes to speaking outside of racing and advertisement, there is no one better than Carl Edwards at it.  IF and I mean IF, Ford did put up an offer he could not refuse, Ford will get its money back through sales at dealerships.  It may not seem like there are many fans left that buy because of their driver, but there are.  I for one am a fan that wouldn’t purchase anything unless it has a Blue Oval on the nose. 

Ford gets put in the limelight every weekend that Edwards is interviewed in front of the camera.  He makes sure his main sponsors, his team, and his car make is mentioned.  Some might even say its rehearsed, however, he doesn’t forget the people that got him there. 

Then my last major reason I believe he did not take the deal at Gibbs.  Bob Osborne. 

Since August of 2004, Carl Edwards has worked with his crew chief Bob Osborne in the Sprint Cup Series.  They have won all but one event in Sprint Cup together, that was the victory that came at Texas Motor Speedway in April of 2008(Osborne was suspended for 6 races because of an oil tank lid).  They were separated for almost 3/4 of a season in 2006, when Roush decided to put Osborne with Jamie McMurray and it did not work out.  Edwards worked with Wally Brown and the two didn’t have the spark.  Through someone very reliable I knew Osborne was already signed to an extension before Edwards was, and that his deal was setup to help lure Edwards into re-signing.  I know that one thing that Edwards has demanded since he signed his last extension, he makes the crew chief decisions. 

I know that last Winter there was a lot of talk inside of the shop that Drew Blickensderfer had talked about taking over the 99 car.  We see that, of all things, it did not happen.  Edwards and Bob Osborne have since won three races together, and the Sprint All Star Race.  They have been on top of the points standings for 15 of the 21 events this season, and even though they have only scored one victory, their consistent finishes matter most.  They have scored 10 top-five finishes, and 15 top-tens, and even though they will lose the points lead when the Chase starts as of now, they have things going their way.

So like I said in this case, Carl Edwards chose his OLD and reliable “Ford” over buying that new foreign made “Toyota.”

It was just two days ago that I was debating with a 16-year old that you don’t splatter rumors over the web that aren’t true.  Sometimes it comes back to bite you in the butt, and sometimes it doesn’t feel so good when it does.  It was just about a montha ago that I debated it out with a comedian from NY about the same issue, and he guaranteed me and a friend that Carl Edwards was signed with Joe Gibbs Racing and he had a solid 100% guaranteed source that knew Carl had signed, and was going to be doing a photo shoot with Home Depot to solidify things up.  What did Carl do?  I didn’t see him saying this morning about Joe Gibbs Racing……..

Jack Roush and Carl Edwards shake hands while celebrating their win at Michigan in June in the Nationwide Series. (June 17, 2011 - Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images North America)

“I sincerely appreciate the amazing opportunity that Jack Roush has given me in this sport and am honored to race for him,” said Edwards. “As an organization, Roush Fenway provides the resources I need to win, and as a driver, that’s the most important thing. We’re having a fun season on the race track as we’re leading the points and in great position for the Chase. That’s the result of a lot of hard work from the men and women at Roush Fenway, Ford Motor Company and Roush Yates Engines. I really enjoy competing with this group and looking forward to continuing that relationship into the future.”

No he was praising his car owner for the last seven years, who has provided him with a solid career in NASCAR ever since he was put in a Ford F-150 in 2003.  Fans need to take one thing from this entire discussion of events that has gone on in the last 4 months.  Don’t always believe what you see or hear.  Rumors are rumors, and they are very, very hard to ignore but until the man that is looking to sign says something, or the car owner, don’t believe it when you see someone say that they have a 100% true source, it is usually not true.  I have a few very solid sources when it comes to things, but one thing is for sure I do not tell who they are.

There is a huge risk for anyone on a race team for telling any news about the race team that hasn’t been officially said.  These guys are under contract themselves and they face penalties for telling things to people that should not be told.  I take what a friend said very serious, she made the biggest point about solid sources from a team.

“If there is anyone at RFR who TRULY knew what’s up, they’re obviously not going to risk their job blabbing it so that it ends up on FB for the entire world to see. Especially the ones who are under contract. So when someone’s saying they’ve got all these connections… any TRUE Connection would NEVER Blab.” 

I think that many people forget, especially in racing that rumors can easily get started off by a post on facebook or on twitter and it doesn’t take long to spread out into the open world of the media.  Carl Edwards wanted privacy when he was dealing with his contract negotiations and the longer that it went, the more the rumors were begining to go on.  So many, including myself, were expecting Carl Edwards to leave and go to Gibbs.  But when I woke up this morning I had a phone with a text message saying he had re-signed with RFR, and that he was staying put.  I was very pleased to read the news. 

It just shows that until it comes from the horses mouth, you don’t believe it.  Carl is where many expected him to leave from, but he made the right decision and stayed at RFR.