NASCAR Cup Series

Carl Edwards has long memory

Published Mar. 26, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Those who have crossed Carl Edwards quickly learn that turnabout is fair play.

So is getting dumped, flipped or plowed into the wall. It’s simply a matter of principle.

It was not surprising that Edwards said he “owed” Kyle Busch one after the two collided last fall at Phoenix. And it’s not surprising that the sentiment was renewed after Busch destroyed Edwards’ perfectly-solid-capable-of-winning-the-race car at Phoenix.

Yet with Edwards focused on winning the Sprint Cup championship, the driver that is currently second in the points standings put the Busch rivalry into perspective.

“Really, truly, the deal with Kyle doesn’t keep me up at night,” Edwards said.

While Edwards isn’t losing sleep over exacting revenge on Busch, the number 28 is etched in his mind. Edwards had a shot at returning the favor last week at Bristol, but it was still too early in the race and way too early in the season.

“That deal at Phoenix cost me at least 28 points in my opinion,” Edwards said. “I told him I owed him one and he asked for me to give it back to him at the all-star race. You never know. Maybe that’s how it will go.

“This is racing guys. You go to Bristol and are on a guy’s back bumper and you have a chance and you start thinking of all the little things and all the little reason behind everything. Really it is fine. Hopefully, him and I get to race a bunch this year and hopefully it is good, clean racing.

“It might get exciting, you never know.”

Edwards acknowledges that Busch apologized following the Phoenix incident. Although Busch tried to reach Edwards by phone, he had the wrong number. Busch followed up at Edwards’ transporter in Las Vegas. Edwards said the meeting was beneficial and found Busch contrite.

“It was a good talk,” Edwards said. “It was fine. All this talk is talk, but the reality is that I didn’t wreck him at Bristol. If I could have gotten to him with one or two laps to go, I might have moved him out of the way, but I’ not going to intentionally go try to ruin his day or anything. It’s not like that. I just feel like the least he can give me is one little spot at the end of a race.”

Perhaps payback at Bristol would have been too easy. Perhaps Busch knowing that Edwards is lurking behind him is a more powerful threat than just a quick retaliation.

“That is good,” Edwards said. “You want a guy to be in that position.”

Between the seams

Making a lap at Auto Club Speedway is anything but a seamless transition.

The seams around the track are actually cause for concern, particularly after the rain when water seeps through the lines in the track. The track's attempts to reseal the seams simply adds to rough ride.

Kyle Busch found out how rough coming through Turns 3 and 4 could be when he lost it and wrecked his primary car on Friday.

“It was more towards the center of the corner,” Busch said. “I don’t know if everybody else was, but my first lap on the racetrack I felt like I hydroplaned through it. I lost the front and then I lost the rear and I tried to gather it up. By the time I wrecked, it looked like I just wrecked off the corner, but it was way back in the center -- it just took me that long to figure out where I was going to land.”

Busch was able to qualify eighth in the backup car, but still experienced difficulties in Turns 1 and 2.

“It’s like the seams are playing havoc with us more than it is," he said. "It’s not the surface. The surface right here is fine, there’s no water that’s going to seep here. It’s through the cracks in the surface that the water seems to come through. I don’t have a fix. I don’t know what to do to fix it.”

David Reutimann, who was fastest in the first practice on Friday but qualified 14th, never noticed water on the track but he’s still weary of the seams.

“There were a couple of times when the car got really, really loose particularly going across the seams,” Reutimann said. “The seams at the track are very treacherous.”

Numbers game

Regan Smith’s fourth-place starting position at Auto Club Speedway gives him the best average qualifying effort of any Sprint Cup driver for the 2011 season -- 5.8.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who admits ACS has never been one of his favorite tracks, posted the best 10-lap average speed of 177.941 mph.