Count Carl Edwards as a fan of adding more teams to the Ford empire.
As FOXSports.com first reported, the manufacturer and Earnhardt Ganassi Racing have spoken about an alignment in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2011.
Earnhardt Ganassi drivers Jamie McMurray and Juan Pablo Montoya have combined for four wins with manufacturer Chevrolet this season. Now, with fellow Ford team Richard Petty Motorsports embroiled in financial problems – and at best racing with two instead of four Cup teams next season – the Ford numbers could take a significant hit.
Edwards, for his part, thinks the Roush Fenway Racing program would benefit from the addition of a top-caliber team like Earnhardt Ganassi to the fold.
While Edwards said he’s unaware of what the exact situation is with RPM moving forward, he offered support for the idea of adding a top-caliber organization to the fold.
“The more Ford teams we can have the better,” he said. “Ford is doing a great job in the marketplace and they’ve got a lot of resources at their disposal right now, and the more teams we can have running Fords, the better off we’d be. If the Ganassi guys want to switch to Fords, that would be huge for us. I would love to be able to work with Jamie and Juan and their engineers, and all the people over there. They’ve made some really big gains and their cars are really fast, so that would be huge for us to be able to work with them. The more the merrier.”
Edwards dismissed any idea of such a move giving Roush Fenway competition within its own manufacturer.
Currently, Roush Fenway is the cream of the Ford crop. The organization has three drivers in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, the only Fords in the field. It has both of Ford's only wins this season with driver Greg Biffle.
Edwards, though, thinks the team would only accelerate with the addition of another top-flight group.
“I think it would help us,” Edwards said. “I don’t know if I’d call it competition, but maybe it would be. It always helps me when one of my teammates is running better than me. It makes me faster. If those guys were able to come over and able to be part of our group and they had things that were working better than us, that’s definitely good for us. Hopefully, we could learn from them.”
Edwards uses Jamie McMurray as an example, pointing out that he changed teams from Roush Fenway last year to Earnhardt Ganassi this year and has gone out and won three races.
“What I wouldn’t give to know exactly what’s different,” Edwards said. “That would be huge for us to be able to understand what is different with Jamie running at Roush and Jamie running at Ganassi because we would hope we could apply that stuff to our cars and make them faster, too. So if you could have people like that, that are close and competitive, that are close to you, that would be great.”
