Posted on by Holly Cain

Since breaking his winless streak, Edwards’ efforts have gone unnoticed among fights, rivalries

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FORT WORTH, Texas — For a fellow that wows crowds with his signature victory backflips, stars in national commercials for Subway and has been an immediate asset to the ESPN Nationwide Series broadcast booth, Carl Edwards‘ success in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series this season has been a relatively low-profile affair.

With reigning Cup champ Brad Keselowski, five-time champ Jimmie Johnson and the sport’s most popular driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. wrestling each week for the championship points lead and feuding drivers’ post-race brouhahas stealing headlines, Edwards’ workman-like run up the standings hasn’t spent much time in the spotlight.

He led a race-best 122 laps to snap a 70-race winless streak in February at Phoenix and has three top-five finishes in six races, but sits stealthily at seventh place in the standings entering Saturday night’s race at Texas Motor Speedway.

It may not have the wow factor, but it puts Edwards well within striking distance of the leaders and, with an early season victory, in prime position for a potential Chase berth.

And he’ll take that.

"I’ve been having a lot of fun. And it’s a huge relief to have a win early."

— Carl Edwards

“Yeah, we’ve been a little bit quiet, but that’s OK,’’ said Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Fastenal Ford.  “I’ve been having a lot of fun. And it’s a huge relief to have a win early. That was big for a number of reasons: Number one, we felt like we could run that well, so to get that win based on the crew chief and the driver and the pit crew all working really well together that early in the season, that was huge.  The other thing is it lets us play around a little bit more with setups and driving and strategy because we already have that win and we’re pretty decently high up in the points, so it’s just been kind of relaxing and fun.’’

Of course, the affable Edwards is all smiles even when faced with trials and tribulations like an uncharacteristic free fall in the championship last year. His 15th-place ranking in 2012 was the worst of his career and the only the second time (the other was 2006) in his eight full-time seasons that he didn’t qualify for NASCAR’s postseason.

More typically, Edwards is contending for the title. He’s finished top-five in the standings four times and runner-up twice, including 2008 when he won a series-best nine races, and in 2011, when he tortuously lost the championship to Tony Stewart in a tiebreaker in the final race of the season.

Last year was tough and draining. And Edwards left this year’s season-opening Daytona 500 still shaking his head after crashing five different cars — mostly collected in accidents not of his own doing.

The win a week later at Phoenix put him back on track and seemed to bode well for his 2013 pairing with veteran crew chief Jimmy Fennig, who won the 2004 Cup title with driver Kurt Busch. At the track where he will compete this weekend, he has the sixth-best driver rating and only four drivers have led more than his 493 laps out front.

“I wish it was just up to willpower, because we would be all right, but it’s just the fact that Jimmy (Fennig) has a lot of experience,’’ Edwards said explaining the strong start. “I’m doing everything I can do. My pit crew has been a huge, huge part of our success this season. We had a bad race at Martinsville, but, other than that, our cars have also been very fast and very competitive.

“Doug Yates has been doing a great job with the engines. I think everything has to be there, and we’ve had a little bit of luck. Things have gone well, so I think if we just continue working as hard as we can, we’re running a little bit better now than we were last year. So we could weather a bad luck streak a little better right now, but it’s all the parts of the team.

“We’ve got good cars, good people, good pit stops.  That’s good stuff.”

He’s also got history in his back pocket at the super fast 1.5-mile Fort Worth track, where his Roush Fenway Racing team has nine wins with five different drivers and Ford has 11 victories overall.

Edwards owns three of those wins. He swept the track’s two races in 2008 and won this event in 2005 starting from the 30th position. His runner-up finish to Johnson in 2008 is the fifth closest finish in the track’s history.

“I don’t know why we’re so good here, but it is nice to come here,’’ Edwards said. “I think all of us look forward to coming here because of our past performances, and I know we expect a lot out of ourselves here.’’ ___________________________________________________________________________________________

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Posted on by Holly Cain

Five-Time used Twitter to announce wife’s pregnancy, poke fun at his perception

FORT WORTH, Texas — It was a big week on social media for last week’s big NASCAR Sprint Cup Series winner Jimmie Johnson. He announced on Twitter that he and wife Chandra are expecting their second child in September.

And he had a little fun with Junior Nation, too.

Johnson addressed both subjects Friday morning in the Texas Motor Speedway garage. And he was still smiling.

"I saw a theme developing and I just felt like having a little fun with it and kind of stirring the pot."

— Jimmie Johnson

When Johnson — as the race leader — drove by Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s hobbled car during a late caution in Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway, he drew the ire of Earnhardt’s massively loyal and loud legions. They took to Twitter and questioned — many angrily — why the five-time champ would put his Hendrick Motorsports teammate down a lap instead of stopping on track and waiting for Earnhardt to get his car moving again. Earnhardt filed in line just behind Johnson.

“The car is stopped in the middle of the road and now it backs up and I know that I am the head of 42 cars,’’ Johnson explained. “I assume he’s (Earnhardt Jr.) backing up to let me by and I’ve been in that position where I’ve got to get turned around in front of the field and can’t, and my goal is to get the hell out of the way. I just assumed he was backing up to let me go through.

“After talking to him and Stevie (Letarte, Earnhardt’s crew chief), really the situation was I was just trying to get going and would liked to have not put him down a lap. But there is no fault held there by what I did. Again, I thought he was backing up to get out of the way.”

Instead of passionately defending himself to the Twitter universe earlier in the week, the good-natured Johnson chose to poke back.

“You haters have it right,’’ Johnson tweeted on Monday. “I’m a bad teammate, I have a cheated up car, I’m lucky and the race was fixed. Gotta love twitter.’’

On Friday, he was still grinning about the situation.

“I just honestly wanted to have fun with it,’’ Johnson said. “I saw a theme developing and I just felt like having a little fun with it and kind of stirring the pot. It’s funny, after that tweet I haven’t had much negative coming in.

“Again, I even said this in interviews earlier in the week, there is a small but loud fan base. I think all of us that work in the sport can sense that through the social channels. … I think there is a large chunk that are pro No. 48, then the majority are respectful of No. 48 (and) then there is a small portion that (isn’t). I will take those numbers. That is fine by me.”

Earnhardt said Thursday he wasn’t upset with Johnson and would have done the same thing himself.

“He did actually try to slow down and I think that he saw that I had two left-side flat tires and it was pretty pointless for him to wait,’’ Earnhardt said. “If he stopped at all, the guys behind him would have been able to pass him for that position. He couldn’t give up that opportunity or take that chance or that risk.

“I would have done the same thing Jimmie did. I’m leading the race. I’ve got to think about my team and my car and what I’m trying to do. I don’t think he did it out of spite or anything like that. He just was driving his race.’’

The resulting victory put Johnson back atop the Sprint Cup Series standings by six points over Brad Keselowski, and Johnson’s good news of his wife’s pregnancy capped off a good week.

Fittingly, Johnson made the announcement on Twitter that daughter Genevieve "is so excited to be a big sister”, considering that’s how the couple announced her birth in July 2010.

With the upcoming birth expected to come as the 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup begins in earnest, Johnson said Friday he hasn’t arranged for a back-up driver yet.

“We know that we need to, but we still have some time,’’ Johnson said. “We are not sure who will be available come that time. 

“I was joking with Aric Almirola last weekend if he wanted to be my back-up driver again, but he clearly has a full-time gig and can’t do it. We will just have to see, but we will definitely have a plan like always. 

“Our doctor has told me that a father has never missed a birth. That gives me a lot of confidence that I will be able to do my weekend job and then be around during the week to meet number two.”

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A few changes ahead of the O’Reilly Autoparts 300 at Texas Motor Speedway

Seth Barbour will fill in atop the No. 6 Cargill pit box for Roush Fenway and Trevor Bayne in tonight’s 300-mile Nationwide Series race at Texas Motor Speedway. Barbour, who normally serves as the No. 6 team’s head engineer, was slated to crew chief the No. 16 Roush Fenway NNS entry with rookie Chris Buescher in tonight’s race.

No. 6 team crew chief Mike Kelley left the track earlier in the day after not feeling well and is being treated at a local area hospital with flu-like symptoms. 

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Former Sprint Cup championship crew chief and current Roush Fenway vice president of competition Robbie Reiser will now serve as crew chief for Buescher and the No. 16 team in tonight’s race.

Barbour guided Buescher to a career-high seventh-place finish in his crew chief debut last month at Bristol.

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Veteran Cup drivers take places toward top of the leaderboard

Read more: Qualifying results

Alex Bowman kept Kyle Busch from winning his third Nationwide pole of the season at Texas Motor Speedway on Friday. The rookie’s fastest lap of 29.441 seconds won him the front starting spot for the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300. Despite battling an illness in the morning, Bowman was able to clock a top speed of 183.418 mph.

Busch’s single lap of 29.478 seconds put him atop the leaderboard until Bowman took to the track. Busch, who finished just outside the top-10 fastest drivers earlier in practice, will start in second, putting two Toyotas in the front row.

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Austin Dillon, Sam Hornish Jr., Brad Keselowski, Regan Smith, Kevin Harvick, Parker Kligerman, Matt Kenseth and Elliott Sadler rounded out the top 10, with most drivers noting a tight car.

Smith, fastest in the morning practice, couldn’t repeat the speed that gave him the final qualifying spot. He ran a best lap of 29.122 seconds this morning, but clocked a qualifying time of 29.556.

Rookie Kyle Larson will start 12th, just behind Dale Earnhardt Jr., after finishing .2 seconds behind the top speed.

Michael McDowell clocked at the bottom of the leaderboard, running 2.166 seconds behind Bowman. Scott Riggs, Joey Gase, Chase Miller, Jason White and McDowell did not qualify for the race.

The O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 will air today, April 12, at 8:30 p.m. ET, on ESPN2.

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President Obama to honor No. 2 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship team

On Tuesday, reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Champion Brad Keselowski will be honored by President Barack Obama at the White House along with other members of Penske Racing.

Penske Racing Owner Roger Penske, Penske Racing Vice Chairman Walter Czarnecki, No. 2 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series crew chief Paul Wolfe and other members of the Penske Racing team will join Keselowski.

The 2012 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup crown was Penske’s first in NASCAR’s premier series. Keselowski claimed Penske’s first national series title in 2010 with the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship.

This will be the 11th time the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion has been honored at the White House since 2000. NASCAR’s first official visit to the White House was in 1978 during President Jimmy Carter’s administration.

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Aussie edges Kyle Busch for best lap; teammate Almirola third

Marcos Ambrose, still seeking an elusive oval-track win, showed plenty of speed in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series final practice Friday at Texas Motor Speedway.

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Ambrose, who won two pole positions last season driving the No. 9 Ford for Richard Petty Motorsports, logged a fast lap of 191.354 mph in the last of two practice sessions on the Fort Worth track. His lap edged the fastest offering from Kyle Busch, who ran a 190.988-mph lap in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

LEADERBOARD: Final Sprint Cup practice

Aric Almirola, Ambrose’s teammate with the Petty operation, drove to the third-fastest speed (190.503 mph) in the King’s famed No. 43. He was followed by Kurt Busch (190.476), who showed blazing speed in Gen-6 car testing Thursday, and Martin Truex Jr. (190.255), who led Friday morning’s first practice for NASCAR’s top series.

Kevin Harvick, winless in 20 career Sprint Cup starts at Texas, sputtered with engine failure a third of the way through the 90-minute practice session. His Richard Childress Racing team mounted a new motor in his No. 29 Chevrolet in time for qualifying (6:40 p.m. ET, SPEED) but Harvick will start at the rear of the 43-car field in Saturday night’s main event after the engine change.

Clean-up for oil dropped by Harvick’s car slowed practice for several minutes.

Series points leader Jimmie Johnson, who won at Texas last fall from the pole position, was 33rd in final practice. Defending Sprint Cup champ Brad Keselowski improved to 10th on the speed chart after placing no better than 25th in any of the previous three on-track sessions.

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Last year’s pole-starter shows speed in opening session

Martin Truex Jr. jumped to the top of the leaderboard Friday afternoon at Texas Motor Speedway, leading the first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice on the 1.5-mile track.

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Truex, the pole-starter at Texas last April, edged Dale Earnhardt Jr. atop the practice chart with a fast lap of 192.143 mph in the No. 56 Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota. Earnhardt, who scored his first victory in NASCAR’s top series at Fort Worth in 2000, was second-fastest with a lap of 192.123 mph.

LEADERBOARD: Sprint Cup practice results

Earnhardt was just ahead of teammate Jimmie Johnson, who won from the pole position at Texas last November. Johnson, the series’ points leader, registered a 191.510-mph lap in another Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

Jamie McMurray, driving for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, landed the fourth-fastest lap at 191.347 mph with Kevin Harvick (190.853 mph) right behind as Chevys claimed the next four spots behind Truex in the opening 90-minute session.

Carl Edwards, Jeff Burton, Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle — sixth through ninth — were the only other drivers to eclipse the 190-mph plateau. Edwards, in a Roush Fenway Racing Ford, leads the all-time win list at Texas with three victories. Biffle, who won last April at Texas in another Roush entry, was also fastest during the last of two test sessions for the new Gen-6 Sprint Cup car Thursday.

Defending Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski, who lagged during Thursday’s testing, continued to search for elusive speed. Keselowski — 28th and 30th in the two test sessions — was only 25th-best of the 45 drivers who made laps in Friday’s opening practice.

Friday’s first practice was red-flagged just after the 60-minute mark for a piece of debris in the racing groove in Turn 3.

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JR Motorsports driver edges Bowman on speed chart

Regan Smith, following up the rapid pace he established in Thursday’s first practice, led the way in final NASCAR Nationwide Series practice Friday morning at Texas Motor Speedway.

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Smith, driving the No. 7 Chevrolet Camaro for JR Motorsports, turned a fast lap of 185.427 mph to sweep practice in advance of the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 later Friday (8:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2). His speed was considerably faster than the 181.056-mph lap he recorded Thursday, when he also set fast time for the session.

LEADERBOARD: Final Nationwide practice results

Rookie Alex Bowman continued to impress, logging the second-fastest speed at 185.008 mph on the 1.5-mile Fort Worth track. The 19-year-old driver of RAB Racing’s No. 99 Toyota will be making just his 10th Nationwide start in Friday night’s 300-miler.

Parker Kligerman rose to third place on the speed chart late in the session with a 183.955-mph lap in a Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota. Behind him was a tie for the fourth-fastest time between Kyle Larson, another top-notch rookie, and Sprint Cup star Dale Earnhardt Jr. Both ran identical laps of 183.524 mph in a pair of Chevys.

Trevor Bayne, Elliott Sadler, Nelson Piquet Jr., Justin Allgaier and Mike Bliss completed the bottom half of the top 10. Nationwide Series leader Sam Hornish Jr., who heads Smith by 28 points in the standings, was 12th-fastest in a Penske Racing Ford.

Qualifying for the sixth Nationwide Series race of the season is scheduled for 5:05 p.m. ET (ESPN2).

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www.SchoolTipline.com to sponsor Alex Bowman for remainder of 2013 Season

NASCAR driver, Alex Bowman and SchoolTipline.com have announced a joint venture where the 19-year old driver will become the face of the company’s “Driving Away Bullies” campaign. The announcement was made by Kevin Wright CEO of RightWay Nutrition, entrepreneur and philanthropist, whose gracious donation is funding the campaign. A director and board member of the Safe To Talk Foundation, Wright along with his wife Annette, helped to create the campaign whose mission it is to provide a safe haven and outlet for kids, who are being bullied, while providing a firm backdrop for suicide prevention.

SchoolTipline.com was founded as a platform to give students, parents, and faculty alike an outlet to report bullying, weapon possession, drug use, etc. in schools. Completely anonymous, students can report bullying and other incidents via text messages. Administrators receiving the texts can respond, opening bridges of two-way communication. This system empowers students to make positive changes, so schools can return to a safe place of learning.

"Whether in person or on the Internet, bullying is a real issue that effects every kid. I am honored to represent SchoolTip-line.com to millions of people each week on the track…"

—Alex Bowman

The relationship between Bowman and SchoolTipline.com will run throughout the 2013 Nationwide Series season and commences Friday, April 12th at the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 at Texas Motor Speedway. Bowman’s RAB Racing #99 car will be sporting a brand new look, fully branded for the SchoolTipline.com.

Wright is donating SchoolTipline.com’s services to Gene Pike Middle School in Justin, Texas beginning with a school wide assembly this Thursday, April 11th at 2 pm. Bowman will accompany Wright to the school where they will speak to the student body to ensure the kids know how to fully utilize SchoolTipline.com, thus making the school a safer place to report bullying and promote suicide prevention. Bowman will reaffirm his commitment to this cause by speaking to middle school students in each city the Nationwide Series runs for the remainder of the season.

Bowman said, "As a teenager, it’s still fresh in my mind what kids of all ages go through when confronted with bullying. Whether in person or on the Internet, bullying is a real issue that effects every kid. I am honored to represent SchoolTipline.com to millions of people each week on the track, and to be able to have the opportunity to look kids in the eye each week to share my passion. I want to let students know there is a safe place where they can report trouble, find solutions and understand that they are not alone.” 

Wright was introduced to Bowman via Shark Tank’s Daymond John, his good friend and business associate. In addition to putting Wright and Bowman together, John consulted on the branding of the car and fire suit in light of the partnership with SchoolTipline.com.

Wright describes his motivation for participating by saying: "Daymond John and I are close friends and have had some very successful business dealings in the past.  After he invited me to a few races to meet Alex, I realized Daymond was right when he was quoted in the USA Today saying ‘Alex is a Rock Star!’ Along with Daymond and my wife Annette, we created the "Driving Away Bullies" campaign. The combination of Daymond John, Alex Bowman, and the NASCAR Nationwide Series schedule truly provides SchoolTipline.com all the tools needed to successfully run this promotion to combat bullying on a national platform.”

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With Martinsville behind him, Earnhardt can look ahead to where it all began

FORT WORTH, Texas — Dale Earnhardt Jr. couldn’t wait to get to Texas Motor Speedway, and his eagerness had nothing to do with how well he typically runs on the big track in the Lone Star State.

No, that anticipation level was directly related to his performance last weekend at Martinsville Speedway, the first real bobble in what has otherwise been an extremely steady early season for Earnhardt and his No. 88 team. He entered that race as the Sprint Cup Series points leader, and the only driver on the circuit to have recorded top-10s in every start to that point. He left after a problematic 24th-place finish that he stewed over until arriving Thursday morning in Fort Worth.

“Everybody handles that kind of stuff differently. I really didn’t get over that run last week until we touched down today at Texas. I wanted to get to the race track as soon as I could, just to get that behind me and put a good result on the board and just forget about that run. You can’t really do that until you get to the race track,” Earnhardt said behind his hauler.

"I would have done the same thing Jimmie did leading the race."

— Dale Earnhardt Jr.

“Steve’s got kids — those kids seem to get you over things like that a little faster,” he added, referring to crew chief Steve Letarte. “You get home and you see what they’re doing and get involved in their lives and kind of forget about all the bad things happening in your life. I did spend some time with my nephew this week, so that helped out a little bit. But everybody handles it differently. It’s hard for me to get over stuff like that, and it takes until I can get to the race track and redeem myself, really, to be able to get over it.”

The frustration is understandable, particularly given that much of the damage was self-inflicted. Although Earnhardt was involved in a scrape with Danica Patrick and wound up two laps down to race winner and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, he said the problems all started with a loose bolt in the track bar that left the No. 88 car too tight to drive.

“The track bar came loose on the left side and was moving all over the place,” Earnhardt said. “We had what Steve labeled as an improper installation. There’s a key in the back that holds the sway bar in place on the mount, and that key came out and got turned, so when they tightened the sway bar up in the morning, the key wasn’t in place to hold the sway bar tight, and the bolt was able to back out rather easily with just the general forces that it sees in the corners laterally and with all the loads. It came loose and it dropped down, and when you move the track bar down it really, really tightens the car up. … It moved an inch, which is a big, big, major change, and it really affected the handling of the car. The car just wasn’t driving very well, especially at the end of the race.”

The problem manifested itself most clearly late in the race, when contact with Patrick caused Earnhardt to spin. But Earnhardt knew it was only a matter of time. “I’m surprised I didn’t get run over sooner,” he said. Johnson put him a lap down, leading some spectators to wonder if his teammate should have tried to cut him a break — which Earnhardt said simply wasn’t feasible.

“Jimmie couldn’t slow down. You slow down, the guy behind you has the right to take your position. I lost a position to (Denny) Hamlin under caution at Phoenix, so I know all about that situation all too well. Jimmie, leading the race, couldn’t take that chance,” Earnhardt said.

“He did actually try to slow down, and I think he saw I had two left-side flat tires and it was pretty pointless of him to wait. If he stopped at all, the guys behind him would have been able to pass him for that position. He couldn’t give up that opportunity or take that chance, take that risk. I would have done the same thing Jimmie did leading the race. I’ve got to think about my team, my car, what I’m trying to do. I don’t think he did it out of spite or anything like that. I think he’s just driving his race. We shouldn’t have been back there in the first place and been in that position to be run over. But fortunately, it was just a bad day for us, and it just seemed to get worse. But he wasn’t doing anything he’s not supposed to be doing. The guy’s leading the race, you know? He’s got to take care of what he’s doing. He’s got to race to win.”

Earnhardt, meanwhile, was left to get whatever he could out of a car that deteriorated as the event went on. Now his attention gratefully turns to Texas, which remains a special venue for a driver who earned his first premier-series victory here in 2000. Although he hasn’t won on the 1.5-mile track since then, he has finished inside the top 10 in five of his last six starts.

This Texas race weekend opened with a test Thursday, so teams could collect data on Generation-6 cars making their first laps at the facility. But to Earnhardt, it was less a shakedown and more a step toward returning to Victory Lane here for the first time in 13 years.

“I’m not looking at this like a test,” he said. “I’m looking at this like, this is us preparing for the race. … We’re just going to work toward getting our car ready to race, and getting our car fast enough to try to win the race on Saturday night.”


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