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AVONDALE, Ariz. – The last driver not named Kevin Harvick to win a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway admits the defending series champion has set a pretty high standard here at the 1-mile track.
"Those guys are definitely fast here," Carl Edwards said Friday after the completion of Sprint Cup Series practice. "We'll see how it goes tomorrow (when two more practice sessions are scheduled), but it appears that they're really fast here in this first practice."
Harvick is the defending series champion and winner of the last four Sprint Cup races at Phoenix. His Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Chevrolet was sixth fastest in the opening practice; Edwards and his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota crew clocked in fourth overall.
If not for Edwards' 2013 spring victory at Phoenix, Harvick might be going for a sixth consecutive victory, having won the fall race of '12 before Edwards found his way to Victory Lane the following spring. Harvick's run of four straight at Phoenix began in part because Edwards ran out of fuel while leading with two laps remaining in the fall race of '13.
Is Harvick beatable here?
"This sport changes and everybody works and you never know what's going to happen," Edwards said. "The other thing that can happen here is it can become a real strategy race at the end.
"It has been pretty spectacular what that 4 team has been able to get done. It's such a tough race to win, I can attest to that. And to win I guess five out of the last six? ... If we can beat those guys, we'll be alright."
Nearly a year removed from a 10-year stint at Roush Fenway Racing, Edwards finds himself just outside the cutline for advancement to Homestead-Miami Speedway and a shot at the Sprint Cup title. Sunday's race will set the three other teams (Jeff Gordon is already locked in with a win at Martinsville) that will vie for the title while eliminating four others.
He trails fourth-place Martin Truex Jr. by seven points, certainly not an insurmountable deficit, but a deficit just the same.
"If you look at the scenarios, we've really got to perform here," Edwards admitted. "We have to win this race – that's our mission. We have to qualify well, we have to make good decisions and really we have to have some speed."
In his mind, Sunday's Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM) is a "must-win race."
"That's the only way to guarantee our spot (in the championship race)," he said. "If one of the guys behind us leapfrogs us and wins, it's going to be a tall order to advance, so we just have to give it all we've got."