Carl Edwards leads the Sprint Cup standings with three races left. (Photo: Getty Images)
It isn’t enough that Carl Edwards doesn’t want to get into a “mind game” battle with Tony Stewart as they race for the Sprint Cup championship. It’s not about just them, Edwards said.
“I talked with Tony a little today, and we joked around a little bit,” Edwards said Tuesday afternoon. “It’s fun to go back and forth and give each other a hard time. But, at the end of the day, we’d both be foolish to think all we have to worry about is one another.
“I think we still have three or four guys behind us who are just as dangerous – maybe more so – in this championship.”
Edwards leads Stewart by eight points entering Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. Also in the top five are Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski and Matt Kenseth, and five-time champion Jimmie Johnson is sixth.
“Jimmie Johnson is not out of it,” Edwards said. “I still think he could win this championship. Five or six guys still have a chance. It’s really hard to go to these race tracks and pick a favorite or pick a strategy. I really feel like it’s still up in the air.”
Edwards said he’s thankful to remain on top of the point standings after races at Talladega and Martinsville.
“We made it through the toughest races for us,” he said. “Now we’re at tracks that everyone on the team is excited to go to.
“The last three races, you going to have to go out there and take every point you can, lead laps, lead the most laps and go as hard as you can on the restarts. I don’t think you can go there and not do that and expect to win the championship.
“It’s just too close, and too many things can happen.”
One of those things happened to Kenseth, Edwards’ teammate, at Martinsville. He fell out of a challenging point position after being involved in a couple of caution flags late in the race.
On Sunday at Texas, Edwards will face the challenge of racing hard while also trying to avoid driving over the edge and into an accident that could cripple his championship hopes.
“It’s a reality check, for sure,” he said. “If you look at the way this season could possibly go, Tony and I could both have trouble at Texas and the guys behind us finish one through five, and we could be forgotten a week from now. People wouldn’t be talking about us. All of that could happen over the next three weeks.
“I know how quickly things can change. Until we get down to Homestead, I don’t think we can point to favorites. I hope I’m one, but it’s simple math. There’s a lot that can still happen.”
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 29 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
