Q&A With Ford Racing's NNCS Driver Carl Edwards From Daytona 2nd Session's 1st Day Of Testing
PCGCampbell For Ford Racing, Press Release

Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion, is optimistic going into the 2007 season. Edwards heads into the new season reunited with crew chief Bob Osborne; the two teamed to make the Chase in 2005, Edwards’ first full season in the series. (Osborne started the ’06 season with the 99, moved to the 26 early in the season and returned to the 99 for the final two races of the season.) Edwards met with reporters in the infield media center at Daytona International Speedway prior to Monday’s first test session, and talked, among other things, about Osborne’s return to the team.

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion –

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS HEADING INTO THE 2007 SEASON?

“Man, I’m just really excited to be here. I flew in last night and it was really neat to realize that the season’s going to start and get to run in the Daytona 500. I’m excited, to say the least. Our whole Office Depot team is ready to go.”

WHAT HAS CHANGED ON YOUR TEAM HEADING INTO THIS YEAR?

“The biggest thing that’s new is Bob Osborne is back. We got to run the last couple of races with Bob. And, a couple of other things with management and engineering and things like that at the shop, but no huge changes, just things that we think that we could do better as a team to be faster even before we get to the race track. I’m really excited about all of the stuff at the shop, excited to have Bob, and hopefully the cars are just a tick faster.”

ARE YOU BECOMING A RECORD MOGUL? YOU’VE GOT A CD COMING OUT…

“I’m no mogul, but my buddies, some of ’em are really musically talented so we bought some recording equipment. It’s been fun, it’s been something different. The biggest thing I do is smile and say, ‘That sounds alright.’ They’re having their first concert on January 25th in Columbia, Missouri, and all the proceeds are going to the Dream Factory, helping all the kids out there, so it’ll be a lot of fun. But, I go to bed at night, I think about racing; I wake up, I think about racing. I get to run the Busch series fulltime, and the Cup series, and that’s just something that’s just a little bit different so every once in a while when I stop in at home I can kind of see how that’s going. It’s a lot of fun.”

WHAT WILL IT MEAN TO HAVE BOB OSBORNE BACK AS CREW CHIEF?

“Obviously, Bob and I had a lot of success. From my first Nextel Cup start through that whole 2005 season, we got along really well and we learned a lot about each other, and I think that having him back is going to be good for a number of reasons. Wally Brown did a great job and I was really sad to see him leave, but it’s going to be nice. It’s a familiar face, a familiar guy on the radio and somebody who definitely wants to win as badly as I do, so it’ll be neat.”

YOU ARE GOING TO RUN A FULL SCHEDULE IN BOTH CUP AND BUSCH – BUT WITH A DIFFERENT CAST OF CHARACTERS…

“I’m really excited about it. I was thinking about that this morning a little bit. The first time I ever heard of someone running both full schedules was Kevin Harvick, and I remember thinking, ‘Man, that would be so cool to race that much,’ and I’ve been able to do that the last two years, so it’s been a blast. We’ve got Scotts on board on the Busch car and that’s going to be a lot of fun to work with them again. To me, it’s great to be able to race on Saturdays. It’s kind of relaxing. It’s a good time. As far as the new guys are concerned, it’ll be a blast to race with all of them. I’ve been meeting guys I never met before, and it’ll be fun to race with them.”

LAST YEAR THERE WAS A LOT OF UPHEAVEL AT ROUSH. DO YOU THINK THINGS ARE SORTED OUT NOW?

“Hopefully they’re sorted out. The biggest thing is, things are always going really well when you’re running well on the track, and 2005 was such a great season, and we won so many races and all of the teams were in the Chase. Everything was great. “And then we went into 2006 and we didn’t change much because you don’t really want to change a lot if it’s not broken, and a lot of the other teams gained ground, so we slipped just a little bit behind. From my perspective, I feel like we’re headed in the right direction. We’ve evolved and trying a couple new things and folks in a couple of different areas, and it should be pretty good.”

DOES IT ONLY TAKE THAT LITTLE BIT TO FALL BEHIND?

“Oh, yeah. I’m telling you, a tenth of a second can mean the difference between running first and running 12th, or whatever, really easily. A lot of times this year where our Office Depot car, I mean, my car felt just as good as it did when we won races the year before, and we were running 10th or 12th. The other teams advanced a little bit more than we had. That’s all that it takes. It’s amazing.”

IT APPEARS THAT THE FIELD FOR THE CHASE WILL BE EXPANDED, IT LOOKS LIKE THE NUMBER IS 12 …

“That would’ve been great last year.”

HOW SIGNIFICANT OF A CHANGE COULD THAT BE IN TRYING TO GET IN THE CHASE, AND ONCE YOU’RE IN THE CHASE? AND, WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE TO SOME OF THE COMMENTS THAT TONY STEWART HAS BEEN MAKING LATELY ABOUT YOU?

“The first thing, obviously if Tony and I would’ve been in the Chase last year, I don’t remember the numbers but I think we scored a bunch of points, it would’ve been great. It really doesn’t matter to me; I think the more the merrier, you know? Where I grew up, the guy who scored the most points over the season won the championship, but this is more exciting for the fans, so 12 could be good. And, as far as Tony Stewart, I thought about that a little bit last night, too. What happened was Tony wrecked the 07, I got caught up in it, you know. What I did wrong was I got out of the car and made it a personal attack, said some things I shouldn’t have said. Obviously, I really upset Tony. And so for that I apologize. I shouldn’t have done that. I’ve learned we’re all in this together, all of us drivers. I’d do anything in the world for Tony, I think he’s a good guy. I hope we can put that behind us, I hope that’s water under the bridge. If we can go into Daytona and draft together and finish 1-2 in the Daytona 500 that would be fine with me.”

HAVE YOU TALKED TO HIM ABOUT IT?

“Really, we haven’t spoken much. To me, there’s a lot of good things in life, I love what I do, I don’t need to come into the Daytona 500 and hopefully my championship season with a grudge. I think what he did there in Pocono, I was really, really mad, and like I said, I learned from that and I learned from the things that happened with Dale, Jr., and, eventually, Casey Mears and on down the line. The things that happen on the race track sometimes you just got to keep your opinions to yourself, so if I could take back what I said, I would’ve talked to just him about it, not the media.”

WHEN WAS THE DECISION MADE LAST YEAR TO CHANGE CREW CHIEFS?

“The crew-chief change I found out like on a Tuesday after we ran somewhere that Wally Brown would be my crew chief and Bob Osborne would crew chief for Jamie [McMurray], and it took us a while to get going with Wally Brown, and finally towards the end of the year, Wally and I were doing great. I only say it took a while to get going just like it would anybody. He’s never done the job and he didn’t ask to do the job, he got stuck in the position. Then Wally decided that he needed to do something else, for his own reasons, and he left Roush and I got Bob back. That’s how it all worked out. I had the opportunity to switch back I think three months into the deal, and I voted to keep Wally just so we could keep moving forward. It kind of worked out crazy with Wally leaving anyway; I would’ve changed back. Jack’s the one who made those decisions and I think that he did it to do the best thing for all the teams.
“And, putting Wally in a crew-chief position, the initial reaction was, ‘Wow, he’s never done that before,’ but if Jack didn’t promote from within, if he didn’t really rely on that I wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity that I got to drive the 99. So, I’m grateful for the way he does business.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS CONFIDENCE?

“We were talking about the deal with Tony and stuff last year, I think there was a time last year where all of a sudden I’d wake up on a Monday morning and it was like, ‘Man, I’m not really having that much fun.’ I’m not working on being a better race-car driver, I’m working on my frustration or anger or something like that. And I think that’s been a big step for me forward just in my life. This off-season I really focused on trying to just kind of let that go, and I think that once you just go into it and give the best you can, you can give your energy to positive things and not be worried about exactly what went wrong. That all kind of turns your world around. I’d have to agree that confidence is important, but it’s bigger than that; it’s your state of mind in general.”

DID YOU LOSE CONFIDENCE IN 2006?

“There were times last year where I thought, ‘Man, what am I doing wrong here?’ We also had great runs, too, that made me feel like I was doing the right thing. But I think in general for me once I realized if I do everything I can and give the best effort I can, that’s what I’m to be satisfied with, not the result. If I blow a motor or wreck or make a mistake or something, you can’t dwell on that stuff, you have to march forward and do the best you can. That’s why it feels so good to say, ‘Man, I’m not angry at anybody.’ I’m letting all of that go. I want to get to the point where I can just show up at the race track with a smile and feel like I’m prepared the best I can be.”


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Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
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" i had to cry and throw a fit to get want i wanted (and they still wont let me win races ) boohoo

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Q&A With Ford Racing NNCS Driver Carl Edwards
PCGCampbell For Ford Racing, Press Release

Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Office Depot Fusion, is looking to bounce back in 2007 after missing the chase for the championship last year. Edwards spoke about the season ahead during NASCAR Media Day earlier this week.

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion –

HOW DO YOU DESCRIBE LAST YEAR?

“It’s just the way it turned out. In ’05 when the car was perfect and it handled really well, we were super-fast. And then last year, for whatever reason, when the car was perfect and handled really well, we were usually running about third, so it was just a little bit different. I think we’ve kind of addressed some of the spots where we didn’t move forward in ’06 and we’ve addressed those now for ’07. Our car was pretty good at the Vegas test and I feel pretty good about it, but the toughest thing for us was just the luck. The Poconos – both of those we had terrible luck – at both Daytonas, just terrible luck. Right there is 350 points or something just in those four races and the year before it seemed like some of those things would work out on the good side of that. That was really the tough part for me.”
DID YOU THINK EVERY YEAR WOULD BE LIKE ’05?

“No, I think a lot of other people think like that, but I’ve been racing for a while and I understand how it goes. There are times when things go great and you can’t do anything wrong and there are times when you just can’t get anything right. I guess the biggest thing and the thing that really helped me the most about having that year is it really made me look at what makes a day go good or bad and to realize the things I can do to control it and then how not to let it get you down because it is frustrating. The bottom line is you can only do what you can do. You can only focus on the things you can control and that’s it.”
WHAT’S IT GOING TO BE LIKE WITHOUT MARK MARTIN?

“To me, Mark is a real friend. I think a lot of people would say that about him because he’s such a nice guy. Hopefully, nothing will change between Mark and I. We still talk and get along and everything. It’ll be harder at Roush because anytime you lose a person from an organization that’s that great it’s tough.”

DID THE CREW CHIEF CHANGES HAVE ANY EFFECT ON YOU?

“It’s not so much the crew chief having an effect on me, it’s just the whole structure of the team and all that stuff. It’s hard for all the guys, I think. Anytime a new guy comes in – specifically, Wally Brown had never been a crew chief. He had never done the job and got called in to do it and he wasn’t prepared, just like we all weren’t prepared so that made it a little bit tough, but I thought he did a good job. It’s just hard. The crew chief does so much more than just talk to the driver on race day. He has to organize the whole team and that’s tough.”

HAVE YOU DONE ANY DIRT RACING LATELY?

“I haven’t driven a dirt car for a little while, but I think I’m gonna do a little bit this year. My brother is racing a dirt late model up at I-80 Speedway in Omaha. I got to race with him last year and I’ll probably race it a little bit.”

YOUR BROTHER IS PRETTY GOOD?

“Yeah, he’s been doing really well. He tested for Jack at Rockingham in a truck and he was pretty fast, but he does it all himself. He does all his sponsorship stuff and all his maintenance, and tows the race car to the race track, but if he ever wants to kind of really go at it real hard the opportunity is there, so we’ll see what happens.”

THE ROUSH CARS HAVE STEADILY IMPROVED AT THE PLATE TRACKS. HOW DO YOU FEEL GOING INTO THIS RACE?

“Honestly, our test didn’t go as well as we thought it was going to. We built a new car that was supposed to be a little bit better than the car we raced last year as far as drag numbers and it went slower. Our slow car was our fast car and our fast car was really, really slow, so Bob changed a bunch of stuff. We’re coming back and didn’t get to test the car we’re gonna race just because he changed some stuff. It could be pretty good, but Daytona is one of those races where we are erring towards having a car that handles a little better and hopefully it’ll be a real hot and slick day, but if it’s not, we’ll just tuck in the draft and try to make the best of it.”

DO YOU HAVE TO BE MORE CAREFUL WITH A CAR THAT ISN’T FAST BUT HANDLES WELL?

“Everybody always says if the car is real slow in qualifying that it’ll run great in the draft. Well, any car will run great in the draft. It’ll keep up, but to be able to go out there and really jockey for position, and to get a run on somebody, pull up beside them and complete the pass, it has to be as fast as theirs almost always. I think there’s a fine line. I think that you see the cars that handle better, that really pays off late in a run. When everybody has fresh tires it’s just a free-for-all, but late in the run when they start to string out, that’s when it really starts to pay off. It really depends. It depends on how the race goes. For some reason, there’s guys who are always up front at those races and they usually have the fast cars that handle pretty decently.”

THERE’S A KNACK FOR RUNNING THESE RACES ISN’T THERE?

“Yes. It does appear random and that anybody can win the race, but there are variables that are small and it’s hard to figure out. Sometimes it can be just as much as that one guy behind you deciding, ‘Oh, I’ll go with him,’ when you pull out and then the whole line follows you and it makes you look like a genius. If that one guy doesn’t pull out, you’re done.”

IS IT HARDER FOR YOUNGER DRIVERS?

“Like I was saying earlier, just in a tire run it changes so much. It goes from being horsepower and drag for the first 20 laps to being a little bit of handling and where you decide to run on the race track and how you keep your momentum up. I think when you watch guys like Tony or Dale or Jimmie or Jeff Gordon, they have a really, really good grasp. They’ve got it perfected. I mean, they can always end up making the best of their day and that’s pretty cool.”

WHAT’S THE MINDSET AT ROUSH RACING FOR THIS YEAR?

“In ’05 I feel like Roush was the team to beat on the track. It’s just little things. When the whole field is separated by a half-second, it doesn’t take much to go from good to great or great to no good. At that point, we had everything going really well and won 15 or so races, and then it was a case of other people figuring things out – particularly the Childress cars stepped up. Last year was not a terrible year, it was mediocre. Matt Kenseth made the most of it, but the rest of us kind of had a little trouble. All we can do is go into this season and try to address the things that we feel like we were short on and we’ve done that. Hopefully it’ll pay off, but you never know.”

WHERE DO YOU FEEL YOU ARE IN DRAFTING?

“I feel like I’m about 75 percent there. I learned some things last year that made it to where I could end up in the front more than in the past. I just learned a couple of little things. Hopefully, the more I do it, the more I’ll learn. This year at Daytona I’m gonna run the Truck, Busch car and the Cup car, so hopefully that will help a little bit just to get in the swing of it. It is tough. It’s tougher than it appears.”

WHAT’S THE TOUGHEST THING TO FIGURE OUT?

“The biggest thing is just to kind of get used to the pattern when they drop the green between pit stops to see kind of how it progresses and which line works better and what moves are OK to make and when it’s time just to sit. I’d say the one fault that I had and I see other guys do is that when you first come in anytime you get a run you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna pass this guy,’ and it ends up that it’s not the best move a lot of times. It’s like gambling. Sometimes the more you gamble, sometimes the more you lose. If you just kind of sit there and wait usually it works out.”

YOU TALKED ABOUT FOCUSING MORE THIS YEAR.

“I think, to me, it’s just a mindset. You’ve got to enjoy what you do. Everybody hopes that in their life that they can figure out a way just to kind of enjoy their day in general. I guess what I was trying to say earlier in the season was that I caught myself lately getting upset about just stupid little things and letting that kind of bother you. That’s the only thing. There’s not too much psychology there other than to just realize in general that it’s better to look at things in a little bit of a positive light, and I think everybody has that choice. That’s all I was saying is that lately I’ve been kind of trying to just remember exactly how fortunate I am to be doing what I’m doing and getting joy out of the process.”

HOW WOULD IT BE TO DO THAT BACKFLIP AFTER THE 500?

“That would be unbelievable. I’ve been focusing real hard on it and thinking about it and trying to prepare the best I can. I can’t imagine winning the Daytona 500. That’s one of the greatest things about the position I’m in right now and I realize when I ran that first 500 it’s like when they dropped the green, you have a chance to win the Daytona 500. How many people even get that chance? So that’s the way I’m looking at it is I’ve got a chance to go do it and all I’ve got to do is just do everything right and have some luck and it could happen.”

WHAT ABOUT QUALIFYING FOR YOU HERE?

“Qualifying is, I don’t know, this sounds terrible to say but I don’t think our Office Depot Ford – we didn’t bring a car down here that’s just like a rocket ship in qualifying trim. So what we’re gonna do is really focus on racing in like we did last year in the qualifiers. We ran second to Elliott last year and I think we started on the third row then, so that was good for us. We’re really focused on how the car races because I think there would have to be some crazy meteorological conditions or something for us to qualify on the pole, but you never know.”

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Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
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Thank you so much !!!!!

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“Well yes Sam, it is almost here and I look forward to performing more back-flips this year.” Carl Edwards

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PCGCampbell For Ford Racing, Press Release

Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion, comes into this weekend’s NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race ranked 10th in the point standings. Edwards held a Q&A session after Friday’s practice at Martinsville Speedway.

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion –

YOUR OPINION ON THE COT AFTER ONE RACE AND TODAY’S PRACTICE?

“I don’t think the car is as bad as a lot of people are saying it is. The biggest thing is it’s different. A change is often accompanied by lots of complaining, so I think it’s gonna be pretty good. We just practiced here at Martinsville and the Office Depot Fusion was pretty good and it really feels about the same to me.”

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT IT?

“The things I like about the car or tomorrow is real simple, it’s the safety. The safety improvements are really the best thing. The other cars do drive just a little bit better, but safety is good.”

SO YOU’LL TAKE THAT TRADE, SAFETY OVER DRIVEABILITY?

“I like the old car and I like the new car. The deal is we are going to run these new cars, so it’s what we have to get used to.”

WHAT ABOUT THE SHORT TRACK MENTALITY YOU HAVE TO HAVE HERE?

“The toughest part about short track racing is that short track mentality. You have to be mentally tough. You have to be able to sit there for 500 laps and not make mistakes, not get excited if something doesn’t go your way, and not get angry. That’s the toughest part about racing at Martinsville.”


WHEN SOMEBODY CUTS YOU OFF OR HITS YOU FROM BEHIND EARLY, WHAT DO YOU DO TO CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS?

“Actually, what I do is if people cut me off, I’ve got little voodoo dolls for each guy in the car and I’ve got a bunch of pins. I don’t resort to on-track violence. I let the black magic work and that works for me.”

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES OF MARTINSVILLE?

“I grew up racing at half-mile dirt tracks with 25-lap features. You could go up and on the cushion and make something happen. You could close two or three car lengths on a guy. Here at Martinsville, it’s so much different. It’s a different mentality. If you do everything perfectly, you might close in a foot a lap on somebody, so to pass someone or catch someone might take 40 laps. It’s so difficult to pace yourself and do that. That’s the hardest part.”

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT THIS TRACK?

“The things I love about this track is how exciting it is for the fans. It’s so different. These short track races, especially Martinsville, it’s just a different mentality. When you get to about 100 laps to go, the race always takes a different shape. You’ll realize that, ‘OK, the outside lane is a little quicker,’ and on the restart you’ll sit up there for a little while and then all of a sudden everybody will switch to the bottom. I don’t know how to explain it, except to say that it takes on its own character and by the end of the race you have these set of skills that really don’t apply anywhere else.”

HOW DID THE RACING SEEM TO YOU AT BRISTOL?

“I thought the racing seemed about the same at Bristol. I don’t know, it must have looked different from the grandstands because it seemed pretty wild to me where I was sitting.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE SAFETY OF THE CAR?

“I didn’t notice any difference when you contacted someone with the car of tomorrow. If you bumped someone to move them out of the way, it was really a little bit easier on the car of tomorrow because you don’t really run under their rear bumper. The rear bumper and the front bumper meet real well.”

IS THAT A GOOD THING?

“I don’t know. I saw a couple times there at Bristol, it even happened to me there at the end, you could hit a guy real hard on accident, or if something happened like the guy stopped in front of you and you hit him, instead of lifting his rear tires off the ground and turning him around, it was kind of like a longitudinal hit. You just hit. You’d slow down and he went faster, but you didn’t lift his rear tires off the ground. I think that might be better in the long run for keeping wrecks from happening out of just tiny bumps.”

DID YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS WITH HEAT?

“I didn’t have any problems with heat. I know Matt Kenseth had trouble with some exhaust melting the foam, and today we were burning a little bit of foam there. It’s something we’ll work out, though. We’ve got a great coolbox with a filtering unit in it and that seems to help a lot. Anything in the race car I don’t smell.” DO YOU TAKE OXYGEN? “No, I don’t take oxygen. I’ve only done that one time. I got some carbon monoxide pretty bad and I took some oxygen after the race, but I don’t make it a habit of doing that.” WHAT WAS THE CAR LIKE HERE IN PRACTICE? “I think it’s pretty good. It’s a little bit tighter. It’s the same deal as at Bristol, you just don’t have that travel in the front end, so it’s really gonna lock up the left-front on the corners with the bump stops, but it really has a lot of grip. I was surprised off the corner. I don’t know if it’s the tire, the concrete or the car, but mine has a ton of grip off the corner and it feels pretty good.”

WHAT WAS IT LIKE WITHOUT TESTING HERE?

“I was a little nervous, but now I feel pretty good. I was telling Bob (Osborne), relative to the field this is the best we’ve been since coming here, so change may be good for us. Hopefully it is.”

WHEN THEY CHANGE TIRES, HOW MUCH DOES THAT IMPACT TEAMS?

“The tire change can sometimes really throw you off. For instance, we went to Richmond the last couple of day to test the Busch car and it just felt a little bit different to me. It took a long time for me to get the feel of that tire, whereas the last time we were there with the other tire, we felt like we had a pretty good handle on it, so it’s kind of hit and miss. If your engineers are on top of it, they can usually make it feel about the same, but it’s still and unknown. It can be a small change or a big change, you just don’t know until you get in the car.”

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Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
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He is sure doing a lot better so far this year than last year.

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Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Office Depot Ford in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series, will appear on the hit FOX television show MADtv this Friday, May 5. Edwards’ appearance on show off his comedic skills as well as the lighter side of his intensely focused race car driver persona.

“I like cutting up and joking around,” Edwards said. “A lot of times people don’t realize that about me, so when I was given the opportunity to have some fun on camera and show a different side of my personality, I was really excited about it. I think my fans will get a kick out of the show.”

Edwards currently leads the NASCAR Busch Series point standings with a commanding 433 point lead over second place. He is ranked 12th in NASCAR NEXTEL Series point standings

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Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
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PCGCampbell For Ford Racing, Press Release


Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion, has to race his way into the Nextel All-Star Challenge tomorrow night. Edwards spoke about that challenge after Nextel Open practice on Friday at Lowes Motor Speedway.

CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion –

HOW DIFFERENT IS IT TO TRY AND RACE INTO THE CHALLENGE?

“It’s different because the last two years we’ve been in the all-star race and hopefully we’ll get in again this year. It’s just like running the “B” Feature somewhere and you’ve got to go to get in the show, so we’ll hopefully be in it.”

LOOKING TOWARD THE 600. WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO TO PREPARE FOR IT AS A DRIVER AND WHAT DOES THE TEAM DO TO MAKE THE CAR LAST?

“The 600 is grueling on the car and it’s really tough on engines. I don’t know that they really do too much differently, but I know as a driver that the biggest thing about the 600 is just to remember how long it is. After 500 miles there’s another 100 left and that’s a long race. I’ve noticed in the last couple of years that if your car is real bad at the beginning, just don’t panic. You can come back from almost anything and be fighting for the win at the end of 600 miles.”

ARE THE LAST 100 MILES TOUGH TO PREPARE FOR?

“For me, personally, I’ve got a great trainer and I train all the time. I love the longer races. If we raced 1,000 miles a week that would be great for me. You can tell, though, especially if you’re having a bad night. If you’re real, real loose and your car won’t handle right, it’s physically very tough. If you have any leaks in the car, carbon monoxide or whatever, that makes it tough, but that’s just another variable. I think it’s fun to compete like that.”

HOW DOES THE BUSCH RACE FACTOR IN?

“The Busch race adds to it a little bit, but I’ve got great guys and great people that make it real easy on me race day, so I can rest up.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE FORMAT CHANGES TO THE ALL-STAR RACE?

“I have no clue what the all-star format is. I think the Open format is two 20-lap races and that’s all I’m worried about right now. Anything that makes it more exciting, though. This race is about anything that makes it exciting for the fans and if they’ve got a way to make it exciting, that’s what they need to do.”

THE TRACK IS SLICK NOW. IS IT DIFFERENT FROM YEARS PAST?

“The track feels slippery – like it’s aged a little bit – and that’s good. With the hard tires and everything that makes it real slippery, so it’s just one of those things that as the track ages and we get the tires just right, we’ll all get used to it but, right now, it’s different everytime we come.”

HOW DO YOU CHANGES THINGS TO COMPETE WITH HENDRICK?

“The only thing you can do when somebody is beating you is to try to figure out how they’re beating you and fix it. That’s all you can do, so what we’re trying to do at Roush Fenway Racing is to engineer the best we can and prepare for the long term with this car of tomorrow.”

IS THERE A DIFFERENCE IN ATMOSPHERE FOR THESE TWO WEEKS IN CHARLOTTE THAN IN DAYTONA?

“It’s a pretty cool two weeks here. Everybody’s family comes down and visits and it’s kind of got the feel that you’re racing in your backyard. During testing a lot of crew guys and their wives and kids would come out to the track and you get to see people at the race track that usually don’t get to come, so in that respect it’s a lot of fun. Once they drop the green flag it feels just the same as any other race, but I can drive home tonight and go sleep in my bed or eat dinner with my buddy. It doesn’t feel like I’m on the road and that’s pretty cool.”

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO ADJUST TO BEING A TEAM LEADER AND HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING LIKE DENNY HAMLIN DID THIS PAST WEEK? WHERE IS THAT LINE FOR A YOUNG DRIVER?

“I’ve been racing a Cup car for three years now and when I first started I obviously didn’t know enough to really make any decisions, and now as I go along and learn more there are times when I feel really strongly about something and I feel like it’s OK to speak up and say something about it.
“But I think this sport is so dynamic and so difficult, and there are so many people with so many specialties, that I think it’s in my best interest and the team’s best interest to be very cautious about what I speak up about because it’s very simple to speak up and say something in the heat of battle. Everybody notices what the drivers say and it’s easy to say something where you maybe spoke before you knew the whole story. There are guys like Mark Martin, who could walk into a meeting at Roush Racing, who has been there for 18-20 years, and he could say exactly what he thought needed to be fixed. He had the seniority and the experience to do that, but I feel like for me personally, I’m in kind of a transition. I’m nowhere near where Mark Martin is at, so I’m still cautious.”

BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO SPEAK UP AS A TEAM LEADER, RIGHT?

“Right, but speaking up usually has to follow some research. You want to make sure you’re figuring out what the real problem is. I know that I’ve walked in Monday morning really mad about something and I knew I knew the answers, and I walked in there and realized, ‘Wow, I wasn’t right.’ If I would have gone off the hook, and I have, I’ve been mad at the wrong person or upset at a situation for the wrong reason, and you just have to be tough. I read that this morning about Denny and I thought the same thing, ‘Wow, that’s a big deal for him to do that,’ but Denny’s a smart guy. He doesn’t say a lot of things like that, so he must have just felt real strongly about that.”

HOW DID YOU RECTIFY THOSE SITUATIONS WHERE YOU GOT MAD AT SOMEBODY?

“You just kind of apologize and back-pedal a little bit, and make sure they know that you were wrong. It happens all the time. It’s a really high pressure sport and, like I said, it’s so dynamic and there are so many different things going on. It’s so easy to say, ‘The motor blew up because of this or we had a slow pit stop because of this,’ and a lot of times you have to take the time to look a little deeper. I’m not saying that in Denny’s situation he wasn’t perfectly right, but you have to be cautious.”

SOMEBODY SAID THAT WHEN YOU’RE IN THIS SPORT YOU DON’T HAVE TIME TO BE ANYTHING BUT HONEST.

“Right, but you don’t have time to be wrong either.”

WHEN YOU THINK OF THE SEASON ARE YOU THINKING 26 RACES AND THEN 10 OR THE WHOLE SEASON OR JUST WINNING RACES?

“At the beginning of the season all I think about is the 26 races. That’s the first season and then after that it’s like a whole separate season – literally.”

WHAT DID IT MEAN TO THE TEAM TO GO TO THE PIT CREW CHALLENGE THE OTHER NIGHT?

“It was really neat to be there and be able to come. I think Sprint counted it as an appearance for me, so it was like two birds with one stone, but I would have been there anyway. The first year I went I didn’t realize how big of a deal it was and I was like 50-50. I was like, ‘Well, I guess I’ll go,’ and once I went and saw how big of an event it is and how much my guys put into it, I’ll never miss it. As long as I can be there I’ll be there.”

DO YOU THINK THE CREW GUYS RECOGNIZE WHICH DRIVERS SHOW UP?

“I don’t know. I hope they do. I hope my guys do, but I wouldn’t knock any of the drivers for not being there. The schedule is so tough and if somebody had a vacation planned or time to spend with their family, trust me, any of the drivers who weren’t there weren’t off just sitting around playing video games at home. They were probably spending time with somebody they’ve neglected more than their crew.”

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE OPEN?

“I’ve been fortunate because we’ve been in the race the last two years, but this is gonna be fun. I was kind of dreading it a little bit, thinking this would be kind of a downer week because we’re not in the show already, but after I’ve been in the car and talked to Clint Bowyer and some of the other guys in the race, I think it’s really gonna be fun.”

HOW HOT WILL IT GET IF YOU’RE FIFTH WITH A COUPLE OF LAPS TO GO?

“If I’m fifth and we’ve got a car that can do it, it’s gonna be fun the last couple of laps. You just never know until the end what you’ve got. Hopefully, it will turn into a battle with four or five guys going for spots. It doesn’t do you any good if you make the show and you have a wrecked car though, so it’s gonna be interesting.”

This Press Release and any images that are used,
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PCGCampbell For Ford Racing, Press Release

Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion, seeks to keep his NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series momentum going this weekend at Infineon's road course. After his Michigan victory this past weekend, Edwards moved to sixth place in the points standings.

CARL EDWARDS - No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion -

YOU'VE DONE FAIRLY WELL AT MEXICO IN THE BUSCH SERIES ON THE ROAD COURSES. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON ROAD COURSES? DO YOU FEEL THEY HAVE A PART IN NASCAR?

"Yes, absolutely road courses have a spot in NASCAR. There's forms of motorsports out there, Formula 1, CART, the sports car series and stuff that all run unbelievably well on the road courses. For us to go road-course race and put on a good show and race with some of those guys like Boris [Said] and Juan Pablo Montoya and Brian Simo, and for us to have that in our sport, I think it opens the sport to a lot of fans that wouldn't be fans if it was just oval racing."

HOW WOULD YOU RATE YOURSELF AS A ROAD RACER?

"I'm getting better at the road races. I'd give myself a 'B' or so. The first year there was this big struggle - big time. And last year we averaged fifth-place finish at the Cup tracks. That was a big year for me to run sixth in Sonoma and fourth at Watkins Glen. I love it; I mean there's nothing like it. You get in the car Friday morning and think 'Man, this is crazy.' Then you go barrelin' down the corner somewhere and then turn right. That is crazy."

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