Source: www.foxsports.com

Signs point to big rebound for Edwards

Ryan McGee / FOXSports.com
Posted: 23 hours ago

NASCAR Images managing editor Ryan McGee gets you ready for Daytona Speedweeks — which begin Feb. 8 on SPEED — by counting down his top 20 drivers. Check out McGee's reasoning for picking Carl Edwards to finish sixth this season.

# 0 wins, 0 poles, 10 top fives, 20 top tens, 12th in points

The Carl Edwards Experience electrified the NASCAR world in 2005, thanks to four wins, a traveling circus worth of back flips and an improbable rookie run at the Nextel Cup title (yeah, yeah, we know, he wasn't technically a rookie, but you know he was).

One year later came a 36-week reality check. The season started with a last-place finish in the Daytona 500 and three finishes of 26th or worse in the first four races. In a move geared toward salvaging the season, team owner Jack Roush moved crew chief Bob Osborne from Edwards to Jamie McMurray, but soon Edwards was back in a rut. By the time he came to the Pocono Raceway in July — a place where he'd swept both races in '05 — the No. 99 team had already settled into a miserable pattern of good week/bad week that kept him stuck in the mid-teens of the point standings.

A run-in with Tony Stewart essentially torpedoed his last chance to sneak into the Chase and Edwards finally lost the edge. He referred to Stewart as "a jerk," "spectacularly self-centered" and promised to make him "bleed" the next time they crossed paths. Four weeks later he showed up in Victory Lane at Michigan to have words with Dale Junior.

Suddenly the golden boy was getting his fair share of boos from the grandstand.

After missing the Chase, Edwards reeled off seven top-10 finishes in the final nine races, but it was too little too late as the best he could hope for was 12th in points.

Why He Will Finish 6th

Edwards seems to have realized that he pushed himself way too hard in '06. A gifted athlete, the 27-year-old has a tendency to try to outwork bad luck and bad racecars when dialing things back a bit is the better course of action. Most of his early trouble stemmed from pushing cars past their breaking point — see his wreck-induced 40th place at Atlanta in March and 36th place disaster at Texas in April — and all of his mid-summer trouble came from pushing himself past the breaking point — see the Stewart and Earnhardt spats.

He is painfully aware of the mistakes he made during his sophomore season and even went as far as to admit as much during last month's Daytona test sessions. He spent a week in December down under, visiting Australia with his personal trainer and cranking out enough physical activity to fill the year of a normal human being.

Better yet, Jack Roush has put the band back together, reuniting the original '05 team that had become splintered and scattered throughout the Roush Racing organization. Chief among the reunited is Osborne, who looks visibly relieved to be back with old buddy Edwards.

All the pieces are in place for a major rebound season. Now they just have to make it happen.

The All-Telling, All-Knowing Stat: 31.8

In four career starts at the Daytona International Speedway, Edwards has posted an average finish of 31.8. He finished a solid 12th in his Daytona debut back in February 2005, setting the tone for his historic first full season, but since then he has racked up efforts of 33rd, 43rd and 39th with three wrecks and two DNF's. He's received much more pub for his struggles at Martinsville, but his average finish there is nearly 10 positions better.

Fantasy Lock: California

Show of hands...how many of you expected us to say Atlanta or Pocono? Yes, he's won two races each in Georgia and Pennsylvania, but his most consistently solid efforts have come on the big D-shaped oval in SoCal. In five career starts at the California Speedway, Edwards has never finished lower than sixth, led 56 laps over three races, and posted a career-best average finish of 4.4.