The First and the Finest: Aboard the USS Enterprise (cont'd)

He met the people that defend our country, and they could not have been more polite. Sure, there were TV cameras and a PR person there, but I really don't think it mattered. Here was a guy, a pilot, a successful racecar driver, a pretty busy person, taking a day to fly backwards for 75 minutes and land on a postage stamp, just to say hello to the troops. Good stuff.

He did everything. Well, almost everything. I don't believe they let him steer the ship.

He hung out with the air boss. What does an "air boss" do?

"I'm responsible for the two bow catapults, the two waist catapults, and there's five arresting gear back aft, four of the wires that you see there, [that catch the "hook" on an aircraft] and then an emergency barricade which is a big net that would catch the aircraft if they can't get on board any other way."

Glad we didn't get to test that!

By the way, 620 people work for him. A normal flight day for his "guys?" Twelve hours.

Carl got to meet the handler; he's the traffic cop on the "Big E." Not a job I would want. A lot of planes. Not much room. And they land and take off from the same place.

Carl got to launch Hornets. Or Super Hornets. The Super Hornet is an F-18 carrier-based fighter/attack aircraft. Impressed? I Googled it. I'm just glad it was on our side.

Carl got to sit in the cockpit of an aircraft below deck and get "checked out."

He signed 350 autographs in 55 minutes. I think that is six a minute. He took pictures. He shook hands. He talked to the assembled crew.

"We're going to go do the best we can this weekend, all season, and I want you to know that for the rest of my career, I'll be thinking about you guys and you'll be my inspiration when I gotta dig down deep so I really appreciate you guys," he said to the crew.

That was my favorite part. As for Carl?

"To stand up there on that deck and see those planes take off and see the environment that these folks work in," he said. "And I mean today is a beautiful, calm day. It's spectacular. And then we sat down and they catapulted two F-18's literally over my head. I had to duck ... that's crazy. That's one of the most exciting things I've ever done in my life.

"It means a lot to me to be here. I thought I knew how hard the folks in the armed forces work and what they sacrifice, but these young men and women have been at sea for 13 of 16 months, they work at minimum 12 or 15 hour days. The air boss said some days they go with just two hours of sleep at the most for weeks at a time. They all have a smile on their face, they're all excited about their job and they really love our country enough to come do this and that's amazing."

Want to know something else that is amazing? They felt the same way about Carl. I talked with many of them. Some were race fans; others could not have cared less about racing, until that Wednesday afternoon in late May off the coast of North Carolina. They were so glad he was there, so happy to meet him. Even the people that didn't get a picture or an autograph told us how inspiring it was to have Carl Edwards on board.

At 5:30 p.m. we did a catapult takeoff from the deck of the USS Enterprise, an unbelievable moment, and it only takes a moment. Then we flew the 90 minutes back to Norfolk, still facing the wrong way. Ninety minutes to think about what just happened, and the people that live on the USS Enterprise and all the men and women that protect our country.

Carl Edwards didn't win at Dover that week, or Pocono the following week. But he did win Sunday at Michigan, the 100th start in his Nextel Cup career. The USS Enterprise doesn't sail until after the first of July. When the crew gets back on board, I bet they'll be talking about that racecar driver that came to see them, because on that day at Michigan he was The First and the Finest, the motto of the USS Enterprise.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.