It's not often you see somebody trying to implode their championship aspirations with a stick of dynamite and a bottle of tequila in tow.
Bu that's the image that Carl Edwards is cultivating for himself these days.
He has gone rouge. Or maybe not. Will he be back with Jack Roush next season, or defect into the waiting arms of Joe Gibbs?
No one knows. Edwards isn't saying. Instead he is being coy and evasive, which leads most insiders to believe that he is already gone. There are rumblings Joe Gibbs Racing is offering an $8 million base salary, plus a $10 million signing bonus.
The drama will continue for who knows how long. But the longer it festers, the longer that Edwards is likely to kamikaze his chances of winning a Sprint Cup championship. He is currently first in points and will definitely make the Chase for the Championship. But what happens beyond that could be etched in controversy and chaos.
That's not just me talking.
"Whether or not he's staying or going, it's a big distraction, a lot on his mind," Jeff Gordon said before last weekend's race in Indianapolis. " I think it's unfortunate in some ways because I think this is the best year I've seen Carl have with a team and a car capable of winning the championship, if those things are all playing out — let's say he's going somewhere else, they're done. I just don't see them winning the championship knowing that they're leaving."
Gordon isn't implying that the folks at Roush Fenway Racing will deliberately blow up Edwards' championship hopes. But if Edwards does announce his intentions to leave, it becomes the equivalent of former lovers trying to remain friends and seeing each other casually.
It's often awkward and unfeasible.
"It's obvious that it's coming to a head…" Roush teammate Greg Biffle said. "At some point he's going to have to say that I'm not coming back. He's not going to be able to wait until Homestead [the last race], we all know that, so Carl is a big boy, he's a man and he has to make his own decisions."
Agreed.
Edwards should do the honorable thing and announce his decision quickly. A lot of people think he's already made one, so it's not as if he is spending hours upon hours fretting over what to do.
Other jobs are affected by this, starting with his race team, and who fills in the gap if Edwards chooses to leave.
"The whole world is waiting for Carl to make this decision," Roush said on SPEED TV. "…Everybody in management at Roush Fenway has held hands and said we're not going to let this be a distraction. We're going to try to maintain the best possible relationship and confidence of our sponsors…"
As Biffle notes, Edwards is a big boy. At 6-foot 1-inch, he is one of the tallest drivers on the circuit.
Time for him to stand up and man up and end the waiting game.
Jockeying for top 12
Strap on your HANS device everybody.
It's going to be a wild ride with six races to go before the 12-driver field is set for the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship.
The top seven guys are safe. But once you get below Jeff Gordon, now seventh, there's a whole lot of jockeying for the last five slots, especially since the last two will place a premium on victories.
That could eliminate guys like Tony Stewart (9th) Dale Earnhardt Jr. (10th) Clint Bowyer (12th) Greg Biffle (13th). None of those guys have a victory, leaving them in a precarious position to qualify. They will be driving without a safety net. Any major mistakes will take them out of the running.
As always, much of the drama will revolve around Earnhardt. After finishing 16th at the Brickyard, Earnhardt dropped another spot in the points. If he remains winless and continues his downward spiral, Earnhardt won't qualify for the Chase.
"We'll try not to worry about it," Earnhardt said after Sunday's race. "We'll go to Pocono and try not to let that overwhelm us or consume us and try to focus on the next race track. We're going testing next week and try to go to Pocono and do better than we did last time and we had a pretty decent finish there and we'll try to do better."
However it plays out, it will make for one dramatic finish in the regular-season finale at Richmond.
Happy BD Jeff Gordon: Lordy, lordy. Look who's 40. Congrats to Jeff Gordon, who turns 40 on Thursday. "I'm going to be 40, but I'm not in the rocking chair yet." Gordon said after winning at Pocono Raceway in June, marking his 84th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory. Indeed, he continues to age gracefully. After 20 races, Gordon has scored seven top fives and nine top tens.
Bowyer/RCR are close: Clint Bowyer is dismissing speculation that he will replace Edwards at Roush Racing if Edwards bolts to the Joe Gibbs team. He said he is close to re-signing with Richard Childress Racing. "I hope we have it done in a couple of days," he said. "We're getting close." Asked if he was looking elsewhere, Bowyer said: "No, we are getting close to having a deal put together."
Stewart continues Indy charge: After finishing sixth at Indy, Stewart now has seven top-10 finishes in the last eight races there. At one point, Stewart was all the way back to 32nd place. "That's a long day at the office," Stewart said. "Yeah, that's a hard way to do it, man."
gdiaz@tribune.com Read George Diaz's blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/enfuego
No comments:
Post a Comment