Carl Edwards, driver of the #99 Fastenal Ford, is involved in an incident during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 24, 2013 in Daytona Beach, Florida.
No one, but not one, is happier to be going to Phoenix International Raceway for Sunday’s Subway Fresh Fit 500 (FOX, FOX Deportes, 2:30 p.m. ET) than Carl Edwards, who was involved in five, count ‘em five, crashes at Daytona International Speedway since testing began in January.
There is however, no truth to rumors that he hit the pace car, the Florida Lottery or the Irish Sweepstakes. Nor did he wad up his rental car on the way to the airport. He just hit everything else — or got hit by everyone else — during Speedweeks.
Edwards is counting on his run of bent sheetmetal being over.
“I haven’t wrecked a car for a couple of days, so I hope our luck has changed,” Edwards said prior to departing for Phoenix.
Also high on the Crash Tracker were Kurt Busch and Mark Martin, who were involved in three wrecks each during Speedweeks. Martin took some consolation in that he finished third behind Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the Daytona 500. Busch, not so much after his 28th-place finish.
“Too many times we’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Busch after his younger brother Kyle triggered a nine-car wreck on Lap 33 that took the elder Busch out of Daytona 500 contention. “We got collected in a practice accident on the first day, collected the next day in the Sprint Unlimited race and today was the final blow. The only race when our car wasn’t a magnet for trouble was in the qualifying race, when we finished fifth.”
Kurt should have better fortunes this week in the Sonoran Desert. In 20 starts at the 1-mile PIR oval, Busch has completed 6,299 of a possible 6,317 laps. That’s 99.7 percent, for those of you without a calculator handy.
