KANSAS CITY, Mo. — NASCAR’s Carl Edwards is known for driving fast at Gateway International Raceway. And not just on the track.
A few years ago, Edwards was leaving Gateway when he was pulled over for an unscheduled pit stop.
“The funniest speeding ticket I ever got was right there in front of the racetrack with my picture on the billboard,” Edwards said. “The cop thought it was pretty funny too.”
With the NASCAR Sprint Cup series taking a weekend off, Edwards, of Columbia, Mo., turned his full attention to Saturday night’s Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 Nationwide Series race at Gateway, which is in Madison, Ill., just outside of St. Louis.
Edwards, who won Nationwide races there in 2006 and 2007, is a distant second to Brad Keselowski in the Nationwide Series standings.
Edwards and Keselowski are the only drivers who race fulltime in the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series, and NASCAR chairman Brian France recently hinted there could be some changes in the works that will give younger drivers and Nationwide regulars a better chance to compete against the Cup drivers who parachute in for Nationwide events.
Edwards, who is 10th in the Sprint Cup standings, understands changes may be in order. And he has some suggestions.
“What are the things that Cup drivers have an advantage?” Edwards asked, before answering. “Full-time Cup drivers have more track time. We’ve got more experience and some of us have teams (with) more resources.
“So if they’re going to make some changes, they should address those issues. And the way I would do that is I would say, ‘If you’re a full-time Cup driver or in the top 25 in points in the Cup Series and you want to race in the Nationwide Series, you get only 20 or 30 minutes of practice. Go out and make a couple runs and get your car as good as it is and then go park it.’
“Then I would also say that no matter where you qualify, you start in the back. So Kyle Busch and Keselowski and me, we all start dead last. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a 300-mile race or whatever, and if we can’t make it to the front, we don’t belong there.”
Those changes accomplish several things, in Edwards’ mind.
“As a fan, I’d like to see some fast guys start in the back,” Edwards said. “That’s kind of exciting. Some drama is going to happen, and there’s going to be some passing, and it also gives those guys a leg up and a head start.
“The guys who don’t have that Cup experience get to start up in front, it gives them a little more recognition and TV time and experience racing up in the front that maybe they wouldn’t get.”
But NASCAR shouldn’t ban the popular Cup drivers from racing in Nationwide events altogether.
“It’s important to still let us race for a championship,” said Edwards, the 2007 Nationwide series champion and runner-up the last two years to Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch. “I know my team and my guys still want to win the championship. They don’t want to get stuck on a team where they can’t win a championship.”
Meanwhile, Edwards, 30, is still looking for his first Sprint Cup win since the 2008 season-ender at Homestead. But he is coming off a second at Chicago, tying Matt Kenseth for the best result by a Roush-Fenway Racing driver this season.
“Second is bittersweet,” Edwards said. “You want to win, but we are obviously very happy with the result. If we run that well every week, we will win plenty of races.”
Edwards, who finished second to Jimmie Johnson in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship in 2008 when he won a series-most nine races, is in position to qualify for the Chase for the sixth straight year.
However, NASCAR is considering some tweaks to the Chase next year, including the possibilities of increasing the number of drivers who qualify from 12 to 15; adding the number of Chase races from 10 to 12; and devising an elimination format within the Chase.
Edwards is willing to give some changes a chance, but he thinks then NASCAR needs to quit tinkering.
“At first I didn’t like the Chase, but then I realized as a fan that it’s a little more exciting at the end of the year to have 10 or 12 guys who have an opportunity to go win the championship,” Edwards said. “I believe we should keep things as simple as possible.”
