Carl Edwards hopes he's closer to finding same magic as Kyle Busch
As a teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing, Carl Edwards has been able to enjoy a close-up view of Kyle Busch's handiwork of late as a driver.
It has been mighty impressive, with Busch sweeping the last two weekends of NASCAR racing by going to Victory Lane in four consecutive races. Busch won both the Camping World Truck Series and Sprint Cup races at Martinsville Speedway two weekends ago, and followed that up last weekend by taking both the XFINITY and Cup races at Texas Motor Speedway.
It has, in fact, reminded Edwards of his own similar stretch of domination in 2008 when he was driving for Roush Fenway Racing. Edwards won a series-high nine Cup races that season, along with racking up five additional wins in what is now the XFINITY Series.
"All I know is there have been times where it seemed like we were winning, we would win the XFINITY race and then the Cup race and you would just win a lot over a period of a couple weeks," Edwards said from Bristol Motor Speedway, where he will lead the Sprint Cup field to green on Sunday after winning the pole in Friday qualifying. "And you wish you could bottle that up and figure out how to recreate it because it's really fun.
"For me, it just feels like you're on this train and it's awesome. Everything is going great and everything you do works. That's a good time. The good part about Kyle's (Busch) success now is that I'm on his team so I can see what he's doing, I can talk to him about it, but I don't know that there's a specific thing you do. I just think sometimes its working and things go your way and you have to be fast, too."
Edwards certainly was fast in his No. 19 JGR Toyota during last Saturday night's Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.
Seeking his first victory of the 2016 season, Edwards led 124 of the first 223 laps before his pit crew failed to tighten the lug nights on his right-front tire during a stop, forcing him to come back in under green for another subsequent unscheduled stop. He went a lap down in the process and fell all the way to 18th, but was able to work his way back up to a respectable seventh-place finish by the time the checkered flag flew.
Edwards again stressed on Friday at Bristol that he has complete faith in his pit crew.
"My tire changers and my pit-crew guys are amazing," Edwards said. "They're the best in the business. I really trust them."
He also trusts that the JGR shop will continue to build fast racecars, which he said he knows will ultimately pay off for him as well as continuing to pay dividends for Busch and his other teammates.
"All of our work last year and all the work this year seems to be paying off," Edwards said. "Right now it's just fun to be a part of. The whole Gibbs camp is fast and it's cool to be driving one of these cars."
