Conversation: C. Edwards (cont'd)

Q: I know you're careful about your diet, so what was the craziest food item you had over there?

Edwards: We stayed at some places that had some normal [food] like eggs and stuff like that in the morning. But the craziest food item that caught me off-guard was on the plane on the way back. We were on Korean Air, because we went to Seoul and then back to Atlanta.

Seperated at birth? One kid in Thailand thought Carl Edwards was Michael Phelps.

So they came to bring you dinner and asked, 'do you want the Korean dish or the beef dish?' Lonnie was sitting next to me and he said he'd take the beef, but I said I'd have the local fare. It looked good and it looked normal enough -- it was like, veggies and meat.

But I didn't realize, until I'd taken a couple of bites, that part of the veggies weren't veggies, they were little bitty fish; like, the whole fish, with little eyes and the whole bit. So I was like, 'oh, my God.' There were like a hundred fish in a little pile on your plate.

That was pretty interesting and I didn't expect that -- but it was real good and I was starving so I ate the hell out of 'em. I'd already eaten some, so I figured, 'why not?'

But there were a lot of things that I didn't know a lot about, like fruits and stuff. I had always heard of papayas and had had papaya-flavored things, but I'd never had sliced papaya and there was a lot of that. And the coolest thing was they had coconuts everywhere. We'd stop at a gas station and this little girl, like nine years old, was cutting the tops off coconuts with a butcher knife and putting straws in 'em and selling 'em for like 50 cents or something. It was just crazy, but pretty cool, I thought.

Q: I know you were concerned about keeping your coach-driving buddy, Tom Giacchi, out of trouble; so were there any close calls?

Edwards: No [laughing]. Let me think. Nothing too crazy -- just probably stuff in the van. I didn't realize until a few hours in [to the trip] that they only had seat belts in the front seat. I'd been driving like a moron and Lonnie and Tom didn't have seat belts. They didn't say anything until it got real bad and then I toned it down.

But I never felt like I was close to being in big trouble -- never.

Q: Maybe a stretch, but did you run into anyone who knew you?

Edwards: One person; and it was really funny. We were in Bangkok the two days before we left, at this hotel where there were a lot of Westerners. We were down at the pool just hanging out, and there was this little kid who was just staring at me. We had no one who'd recognized me -- we probably didn't see anyone who knew what NASCAR was the first six days.

So this kid's staring at me and I told my trainer, Dean -- that kid's been staring at me and he looked at me real strange, like he might watch NASCAR or something. He's looking at us and looking at us, and Dean finally starts messing with this kid, asking him if he ever watched NASCAR.

His name was Will, I remember that, and he said yeah, he did. I think he said Tony Stewart was his favorite driver, but Dean asked him who did the back flips, and he said 'Carl Edwards.' Now I had introduced myself to the kid already and Dean said, 'now what did he say his name was -- Carl?' And the kid goes 'Carl Edwards!' And I said 'yeah.'

So he goes, 'I thought you were Michael Phelps [laughing].' I'm like, 'what the hell are you talking about [laughing]?' But that was hilarious. I guess he just hadn't seen an American for a while and he thought I was Michael Phelps. So I can say I was not recognized, but he thought I was Michael Phelps, which was pretty interesting and we laughed pretty hard about that because I'm sitting there thinking this kid recognized me, and not quite.

Q: What's your next international excursion going to be, now that you've got Thailand out of the way?

Edwards: Our next trip is going to be Africa. I don't know if it would be a safari or not, but we were thinking about South Africa because Tom's friend knows some people down there -- he used to play rugby there. But I'm thinking safari, because that would be fun. (Continued)