Monday, June 04, 2012

Is Edwards' Season Of Promise Slipping Away?

The No. 99 was out early Sunday
Three months ago, Carl Edwards was confident there would be no negative karma from his “close, but no cigar” 2011 championship bid.

It appears he may have been wrong.

Edwards and his Roush Fenway Racing team battled Tony Stewart to the bitter end last season, ending the 36-race championship chase in a dead-heat tie for the title. Stewart prevailed in a tiebreaker -- five wins to one – making Edwards the most successful non-champion in the history of the sport and establishing him as a preseason favorite to claim the 2012 Sprint Cup.

In the aftermath of Sunday’s Fed Ex 400 at Dover International Speedway, Edwards finds himself outside the Top 10 in points and fading fast. After a mediocre, 19th-place qualifying effort, Edwards ran mid-pack for 160 laps Sunday before cutting a tire and clouting the Turn One wall en route to a 26th-place finish.

Edwards is now 12th in points
He is now 12th in the Sprint Cup standings, and if the regular season ended today, Roush Fenway teammates Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth would be seeded first and second for the Chase. Edwards would be on the outside, looking in. It has been 46 races since the No. 99 Ford last visited Victory Lane; a dire situation for a team that may need a checkered flag or two to secure a Wild Card berth to the playoffs.

It’s all so eerily familiar.

In 2009, Edwards seemed primed for a title run after finishing second to Jimmie Johnson the previous season. He failed to deliver on that promise, however, finishing a disappointing 11th in the championship standings.

There is still time to right the ship, but with the 2012 regular season now half complete, it’s beginning to look like déjà vu, all over again.

Photo Credit: Getty Images/NASCAR
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4 comments:

  1. Monkeesfan11:21 AM

    Edwards' career has been plagued with radical inconsistency - twice in the previous seven seasons he failed to win a race. I think there's something in his makeup as a driver that kills winning momentum; his eruptions over the years certainly suggest something in him gets in the way of winning more.

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  2. Anonymous11:24 AM

    This is the type of story that we need to be talking about,trying to find out how Carl feels now after last year has any one asked him.

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  3. Matt G.11:41 AM

    This is surprisingly common.
    2002 Mark Martin finishes 2nd - 2003 winless and misses the top 10
    2005 Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards tie for 2nd - 2006 Edwards winless and they both miss the chace
    2007 Jeff Gordon finishes 2nd - 2008 winless and finishes 7th
    2008 Carl Edwards finishes 2nd - 2009 winless and finishes 11th
    2009 Mark Martin finishes 2nd - 2010 winless and misses chase
    2010 Denny Hamlin finshes 2nd - 2011 one win and finishes 9th

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  4. Joethedriver112:34 PM

    I really think that not running in the nation wide has had an affect on carl he is such a competitor that i feel like he needs to be on the track as much as posible not that he needs the seat time but i think he needs the rush of competing

    ReplyDelete

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