KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- It all began with a handshake.

Even at 19, Carl Edwards was a master of self-promotion. He printed up business cards, bought space in National Speed Sport News advertising himself as a driver, and introduced himself to everyone. Whether it was a legend like Richard Petty, a star on NASCAR's top circuit or a team owner, Edwards was never shy about sticking out his hand and mentioning his name. And that's just what he did in the late summer of 1999 at Indianapolis Raceway Park, when he walked right up and shook hands with Mike Mittler, owner of a Craftsman Truck Series team from his home state of Missouri.

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Obviously, my crystal ball was pretty clear about the ability that he had. You just knew that he had it. And you just knew by working with him, by looking at the intensity in his eyes and his face, and you knew by his ability.

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MIKE MITTLER

Edwards wanted a ride -- but not in a racecar. Just a ride back to St. Louis. Mittler readily agreed to provide one, but added that he wouldn't be leaving until the next day. When the time came to depart, Edwards never showed.

"I'd been home for a week or two, and who shows up at my door but Carl Edwards," Mittler remembers. "He comes over and says, 'Remember me?' I said, 'Yeah, I remember you, what happened? I thought you were going to ride home with us?' He said, 'Oh, man, I had to get back. I had to get back that night.' I asked him, 'How did you get home?' He said, 'I hitchhiked.' I thought, 'Holy cow.'"

It was Mittler's first exposure to the always-ready Edwards, who soon afterward began traveling to races with Mittler's MB Motorsports team even though he didn't have a ride, always carrying his helmet in case an opportunity arose to get behind the wheel. It was that unwavering persistence that eventually swayed Mittler to put Edwards in his race truck, that helped Edwards record a groundbreaking eighth-place finish at Kansas Speedway six years ago, that led the sport's power teams to take notice of Edwards and put the driver on the fast-track to stardom. And it all began when he introduced himself to Mittler, who runs his race shop and machine and tool business out of Wright City, Mo., and could only keep Carl Edwards at bay for so long.

"He called every week, every other week," said Mittler, whose modest operation also helped launch the careers of Jamie McMurray and the late Kenny Irwin and Tony Roper. "He had a total drive and a total focus about him, even when I first met him. When he came to my office, he was focused. He knew what he wanted to do. He said, 'Man, I'm going to drive your truck.' So I said, well, OK, that sounds like a pretty good deal to me. The focus really made a big impression on me."

Edwards wasn't wasting any time, even arranging a test session at his home track in Moberly, Mo. While Mittler saw promise, he also saw a local dirt-track driver without enough experience to make the jump directly into NASCAR's national divisions. At Mittler's urging, Edwards bought a silver crown car, which the Truck team owner helped him prepare. Soon afterward he began angling for another test, so Mittler trekked back up to Moberly, this time with Tony Roper, his driver on the Craftsman Truck Series at the time, in tow.

"Carl got in, and instantly ran as fast as Tony did," Mittler remembered. "Instantly. Tony was standing right next to me, he turned and said, 'I guess I'd better get back in that thing and hustle a little harder, or I'm going to lose my ride.' We kind of laughed. That's really a great memory I have of Tony."

Roper was killed in a Truck race crash at Texas Motor Speedway in 2000. Mittler turned to Larry Gunselman, but accidents and a lack of sponsorship took a toll on the relationship. Finally, after a 30th-place finish at Gateway International Raceway, his hometown track, Mittler had seen enough. The Tuesday after the race, he called Edwards and told him that he'd be driving the truck in the team's next scheduled race, at Memphis Motorsports Park. Edwards was so excited, Mittler remembers, the driver started jumping up and down on his bed like a kid on Christmas morning. By then, Mittler knew Edwards was ready to make the leap.

"When people say, what makes Carl unique, No. 1, he is at least genius mentality in my mind," Mittler said. "He might be at least genius IQ. I really believe that. He is incredibly, incredibly smart. And even then, he was in very, very good physical condition. He was mentally and physically prepared to do the job. I have never seen that guy drink anything but water. We'd get on the road and we'd stop in at pit stop or something to get fuel, and I'd get a Coke and a candy bar or whatever, and Carl would get a water and a granola bar. I used to shake my head. But he had the vision. He clearly knew what that vision was, and he was going to accomplish it."

Soon after Edwards slipped into Mittler's race truck, that vision started to become reality. Memphis brought a 23rd-place finish, but Edwards had been 14th-fastest in final practice. Then it was onto Milwaukee, and a 28th-place result. It all came together at Kansas, Edwards' home track, where he started 14th and never ran any lower. It was something of a stunning result, recorded by a relatively unheralded former dirt-track driver running for a part-time team, and it turned heads. The eighth-place finish "was a victory," Edwards remembered. "That was a huge, huge day for all of us."

"We didn't just luck into it," Mittler added. "It wasn't a race where everybody wrecked. We raced our way to eighth place. The following weekend we went to Kentucky, and by then we really had a lot of notoriety. People were blown away that we could do that. I told [Truck Series director] Wayne Auton, 'Let me tell you something. This kid is a Winston Cup champion. This kid is a phenom. He is one in a million.'

"Of course everybody thought, 'Ah, Mike's smoking crack.' I told them, 'If I had the money, I'd go get a Cup car right now, and we'd go back to Kansas this fall. He could run this Cup race. That's how good he is.' They all shook their heads. Obviously, my crystal ball was pretty clear about the ability that he had. You just knew that he had it. And you just knew by working with him, by looking at the intensity in his eyes and his face, and you knew by his ability."

Other people were noticing Edwards' ability, too. Edwards was impressive in both a Daytona test for the 2003 Truck season and a private Ford test at Talladega Superspeedway, and began receiving telephone calls from Max Jones, a former Roush executive who is now co-owner of Yates Racing. The Roush team pursued Edwards like a major-college football program going after a five-star quarterback, flying him up to their headquarters outside Detroit and showing off their new race shop near the airport in Concord, N.C. For Edwards, who felt both a debt of gratitude and an obligation to Mittler, it wasn't the snap decision it might have seemed. But Roush could provide so much that Mittler couldn't. When the call with the offer finally came, as Edwards was preparing what was to be his 2003 race truck, he gave in.

Edwards walked out of the race shop and up a hill to Mittler's office, brimming with trepidation the whole way. "I fully expected him to ask me, to try to force me to stay there and drive his truck, because we put so much into it," Edwards said Friday at Kansas Speedway. "He stood up, smiled, he was as happy as I was. He shook my hand and said, anything I can do to help you, but you've got to go. That was cool. He put himself and what he needed aside for me."

Mittler remembers that meeting in his office as well. "I just looked at him and said, 'You got the call, didn't you?' He kind of looked at me and said, 'How do you know?' I said, 'I can just tell.' I could read his emotions, I could read his intensity," Mittler said. "I said, 'Are you going to take it?' He said, 'I don't think so.' I sat him down, closed the door to my office and pounded my fist on the desk. I said, 'You have to take it, man. You have to take it. That man can do for you what nobody else can. Certainly, I can't do it. With a truck, a Busch car and Cup car, that's the opportunity of a lifetime. That's what you've been working for. Take it.'"

So Edwards took it. Roush faxed the contract to Mittler's office, and soon afterward Edwards' career took off. He ran the full 2003 Truck campaign for Roush, winning three times. He made his Cup debut in 2004. Now, he's the Sprint Cup championship leader with seven races remaining. For Mittler, it was a bittersweet parting. He knew Edwards had to move on to achieve bigger things. But at the same time, he didn't want to lose him.

"I was fit to be tied, because I had spent a lot of money on him by then," Mittler said. "It was a bittersweet deal for me. My wife was really upset. She's let me do everything I wanted to do in racing, never a question asked, but she was really, really upset, because she knew we had spent a lot of our own money doing it. But hey, you know the rest of the story."

Mittler is still fielding his Truck team, still running a partial schedule because of the exorbitant expense of going full time, still looking for the next Carl Edwards. He's high on his current driver, Jack Smith, a short-track veteran who's competed in three Truck events this season. And he still keeps in touch with Edwards, swelling with pride when his old driver thanked him on live television after winning at Michigan, calling him every now and then to ask for some help with his Truck team. It's a bit more difficult to get him on the phone these days, Mittler admits. But Edwards still comes through.

"I called him a few weeks ago before the Gateway race," Mittler said. "I didn't talk to him, I left a message saying, 'I need some help, can you help me out a little bit with information?' Sure enough, he arranged for the right people to call me. I still haven't spoken to him, but he arranged for the right people to call me and got me some good technical help. It was a very beneficial phone call. I have a lot of respect for him. He learned from me, and I've always told people that I learned from Carl, also. I learned to just stick your hand out and say, 'Hi, I'm Mike Mittler, nice to meet you.' I really did learn that, even though I'm plenty old enough to be his dad."

It's the least Edwards can do. "If it weren't for Mike Mittler," he said, "I definitely wouldn't be standing here, that's for sure."