The signs of the frustration were on the drivers voice and after several occurrences happening this season already with the team, it could mean that some changes might need to happen.  I have been a supporter of the team, through the toughest of times, but it usually goes to that old three strike limit.  One’s not good, two is bad, and three its time for changes to happen.  Pit road is the one place that the teams can make up time on others with better times, but when you lose time on most of your stops because of a mistake by a changer, and then have a lug nut that is loose and causing a vibration on regular basis it is just a no brainer.

The team had a great recovery to come back and finish ninth in the race and they remain in 10th place in the points standings.  The cars have been very fast and at times last night Edwards was one of the fastest on the field.  The one major issue that has been hurting Edwards this season is pit stops.  I have debated with other fans early in the season that it was because of the changes in the off-season but now it has come to that point, these guy’s should not be make these mistakes.  And yes I will probably be thrown under the bus for these comments because teams like the 17 and 48 that normally don’t make these mistakes did last night, however, this is getting to be a common thing for the Fastenal crew.

I can go back a few years ago when crew chiefs and car chiefs did tire changing and you didn’t see them make these mistakes.  Take it, this is going back to the late 90s and early 2000s, when Frank Stoddard and P.K. were doing this at Roush on the 99 crew for Jeff Burton.  Now members are recruited just like football players, but they have to perform under the same pressures and have to learn to overcome it.  Now that we are passed the 600 and fixing to go to Dover and run the 13th race of the season, these guy’s should be performing pit stops on a regular basis in the low 13 second bracket.

I know what it is like to do these things, I worked inside racing most of my life and made a career of it for five seasons. Pit road is a very dangerous place with guys coming at you, tires rolling everywhere and fuel going into a car.  It’s a place that not many people can work with perfection.  I know the verdict is still out there but another deal like last night and it will have many more fans wondering about the pit crews performance even more.

Edwards is sitting tenth in the standings after his finish on Saturday night.  Had it not been for two miscues that couldn’t have been avoided where Carl Edwards was at on the track in Bristol and Talladega, he would likely be much higher.  After 11 races last season, Tony Stewart was sitting in the exact same position for the Chase as Edwards is right now, 10th.  His season had not even looked anywhere near as good as what Edwards is having right now.  Stewart was negative 88 to the points leader, who at this time last season, was Edwards.  Right now, Edwards is 74 points behind his teammate Greg Biffle going into next weekend’s All-Star race where there will be no points awarded for the event, but it is a great testing event on the engines and setup for the event a week later in the Coca-Cola 600.

Wins are important, but Stewart proved last season that you did not have to be successful in the first part of the season to win the championship.  Remember his comments right before the Chase?  “We don’t even deserve to make the Chase!”  Yeah I do.  So here is where I am coming from, fans are criticizing Osborne and the team for not winning races but the fact is, you don’t have to win them right now to get into the Chase as long as you stay consistent enough to make the Chase.  Yes – there is a blank spot on Edwards numbers since his last victory at Las Vegas in 2011, however, the wins will come.  I have been a supporter of Bob Osborne’s calls since the day he came in as the crew chief for this team, even when Jeff Burton was racing this car.

Andy Petree described Bob Osborne as brilliant, not the life of the party, but threw in the word brainiac.

He is very calculative, smart, and he’s got the experience to back up his calls.  Last night in Darlington, I seen some fans question his call to bring Edwards down to pit road and put fresh rubber and fuel on the car.  It helped Edwards in the final 20 laps as he gained back most of what he lost and finished the race, when there was a question mark on whether or not they were going to finish. Fans try to play a crew chief, but you really can’t do it.  Fans haven’t sat on that box and made those pressuring calls to win or lose races.  It isn’t a job I would want in NASCAR, and I’ve crew chief’d for a local racer, and it’s even bad enough making calls at that level.  I have debated with numerous fans before that Osborne is a good crew chief, and just recently was one of the top-10 crew chiefs on a list by ESPN.

No he isn’t the most out right person in the garage, he doesn’t have a smile on his face every-time that you see him, he is just Bob Osborne.  He manages things differently than most crew chief’s because he’s got an engineer’s approach.  He was the head engineer at Roush Fenway Racing before taking on the role of being the No. 99 crew chief.  You rarely see excitement out of Bob, but when the success does come, he’s will enjoy his success.  In the off-season, the crew had major changes made in hopes of fixing some of the issues from last season and some of the key elements were replaced, including the engineers for the team.  I was asked a while back, why replacing an engineer can hurt a team when your crew chief is a former engineer himself.  The fact is, a crew chief can’t play both spots.  It’s like asking a quarterback to play wide receiver while being a quarterback.  The success rate would be even further down the line.

Crew Chief’s are leaders, they keep everything organized and the team in place, much like a coach would do.  And you cannot ask a guy to come back and play a role he did almost 10 years ago.  I’ve worked on race cars a lot of my life and know the difficulty in winning, and I know how fans react to situations when their driver is not winning races.  It’s part of the sport, it’s going to have criticism in it.  It’s just like any other sport for that matter, if the team isn’t winning, the first thing fans want is a change.

Fans like to think that they can play crew chief from their living room seat but it isn’t all that simple.  It’s the same as being the head coach of a pro football team, a manager of a major league baseball team, there has to be other things that work out.  I will use Darlington for example, someone criticized some adjustments that made Edwards car worse during the late part of the race, however, there are a lot of things, including dirty air that can cause these issues, and not be from any adjustments.  It’s the way that these aerodynamic machines are, they cut such a while in the air and cause so much air to flow that the guy behind the lead car has issues, and when you are sitting in 10th place, it causes an even bigger issue.

Carl Edwards has had some issues but let’s get things straight, lets not go throw the blame totally on his crew chief and team.  I think one thing the average fan forgets, this is a team sport and that driver can make mistakes, even if he is Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson or any other veteran out there.  Drivers learn something every week, and they do learn from their mistakes.

Ask 10 fans about a crew chief and what he does, and ask what a car chief is, most would say they are the same thing.  I was in Daytona back in February and walked into the garage area with a hot pass and seen Pierre Kuettel, who his the car chief for the crew and a woman made the comment “Isn’t that Bob Osborne? the crew chief?”  I said “No that’s Pierre Kuettel or P.K. the car chief.”  And she surprisingly had never heard the term car chief.  I even asked P.K. how many times people confused him with Bob Osborne, and the total was surprisingly high.  The average fan doesn’t know the difference between the two positions, and some thinks that the car chief plays a major role in the decision-making of the race car setup.  He doesn’t.

He takes the setup that the crew chief and engineers come up, puts it on the car and has a check list that every member has to put their initials on when their job is complete, when the jobs are done, his are placed on the list as well.  The two positions have long been misunderstood by fans. I received a reply last season from a fan remarking on P.K. and him getting part of the blame for what was going on with the 99 car.  The fact is, look at the difference in miscues from 2008 with Jason Myers compared to having Pierre Kuettel on board.  No loose bolts on the oil lid, no loose nuts on the splitter brackets, and no problems with an ignition system like the team had in 2008.

Osborne and Kuettel are two totally different people, but they’ve had success with Edwards.  Both as crew chiefs, and working together as crew chief and car chief.  When the 99 team needed a car chief in 2009 after Myers was let go, Osborne knew who to call to get back on the team.  Last season was proof that the team could be a championship caliber team and they will remain that this season, we are only ten races into the season and there has been no failures on the cars parts, mostly bad luck that has hurt the team.  It’s complicated for most fans to comprehend on, but there’s still 16 races left before the Chase positions are locked in and Edwards will be in the mix; either with consistent; or with the wins, this team is good enough to do it.

I have been a fan of this sport since I was a 5-year-old kid, worked inside it on a team and can tell you from both sides of the road, that there is favoritism inside this sport.  Let’s start by what happened in the race on Saturday night, I watched every video replay of every restart that Carl Edwards made in the event, and his restart point was from the same position each time in the race.  Then on the next to last restart, he is black flagged for jumping the start, and what made things look even worse was Tony Stewart spun his tires and his fans think it made him look smart by doing it purposely, however, it backfired on him on the final start when Kyle Busch got by him, it made Stewart lose the race and Stewart was aggravated by a caution flag that was thrown for debris.

Now let us jump back a month or two ago when the 48 car won its final appeal with NASCAR, General Motors’ former CEO John Middlebrook did the final appeal and the 48 got points and the suspensions pulled off.  Since this sport really became popular in the 60s and 70s, I truly believe that there has been favoritism in this sport and it comes from who has the popularity in this sport.  And Chevrolet has been one that has gotten a slide here and there more than anyone else.  I was in my senior year of going to school, when I heard of this issue coming up of Chevrolet whining about a disadvantage after the inaugural event in Las Vegas, where Ford dominated the event and scored nine of the first ten positions in the event, and Mark Martin and Jeff Burton made it a Roush 1-2 finish.  The following weekend in Atlanta, a spoiler was changed to help the General Motors cars, and Bobby Labonte won the event.

Ford ran the same engine package since the 70s, until they were allowed to bring in the new FR9 in 2010.  GM cried about the advantage that the cooling system on the FR9 was a huge advantage then, and still there are cries that they are at a disadvantage since Ford has the FR9.  But back to the driver popularity.

Watch most of the commercials concerning NASCAR from Fox, ESPN, and NASCAR themselves and look who is featured most of the time, the 5, 14, 24, 48, 88, and sometimes the 18.  Most of which drive a Chevrolet in the sport.  So when you go back over the last few years, how many times have you seen Tony Stewart get black flagged for jumping the restart?  Better yet, how many times have you heard of him getting a warning, and if you have been watching Stewart’s jumped it a few times, but I believe that Stewart has been taking the place of Earnhardt Jr as NASCAR’s favorite man(not the fan favorite but the officials).  Stewart does provide a spark, but he is not Dale Earnhardt, and never will be able to fill in that void.  So just like with Earnhardt I do feel he is shown a little bit of favoritism, as with Jr.  And if you don’t think there is, listen to racing commentators who they brag on each week, Darrell Waltrip is the most biased person there is when you listen to him every weekend brag about Jr, Stewart, and Johnson.

I feel last weekend, Edwards was screwed out of a great finish because of NASCAR making a huge mistake.  The running order was not set, even the scoring pylons showed the 99 as the leader, and the officials told the 99 spotter Jason Hedlesky they were the leader, and from what I heard, even the 14′s spotter overheard it.  This is another situation where NASCAR did not want to admit their mistakes, because they never do.  I’ve never been so disgusted over a call in a race, and I’ve never heard Bob Osborne get so irate over a calling either.  To tell you the truth, I myself, am very shocked that NASCAR did not fine Osborne for what he said to the officials in the pit box.  But he had reason to be, as did a lot of fans.

Then it goes back to those restarts.  If you let someone make the same restart for more than 4 tries, and he restarts from that same point, and there is never a warning for it, I feel it’s a case where NASCAR made a call on Edwards, that chances are, they wouldn’t have with Stewart, Earnhardt, Gordon or Johnson.  So call me biased towards Edwards but I have seen it enough to know there is favoritism with NASCAR for the drivers that put more money to them.  Carl Edwards probably learned something valuable from this on Sunday, and I don’t believe it will happen again but, I too have learned something, NASCAR’s going to call it their way to help with ratings!

It was evident on Friday afternoon when Edwards was low on the speed charts in both of the practice sessions for the race on Sunday.  Then it was even more clear on Saturday when the No. 99 Fastenal Ford was qualified in 28th for Sunday’s race.  Edwards struggled through the race on Sunday and was able to finally find his way to an 11th place finish in the event, after struggling the entire afternoon.

Bob Osborne and the crew would make adjustments on the car throughout the event to help with the handling on the Fastenal Ford Fusion, however, with very little help from yellow flags, Edwards was a lap down in the race by lap 200.  Edwards kept his good calm demeanor and even played an April’s Fool joke on crew chief Bob Osborne, telling him that he had broken the transmission shortly after falling a lap down.  It would take 163 laps to get the lap back with a lucky dog from a caution flag and running in 15th place on lap 363.  The adjustments that were made to the car, helped make the car better, however, he would fall a lap down again with 28 laps remaining in the event.

Edwards made a pit stop on lap 501, for a green white checkered finish after getting the lucky dog again.  When the race resumed on lap 504, the front three cars were involved in an accident and Edwards was able to pass them and move into 12th place.  He would gain one more position on the final restart to finish in 11th place.

“That’s a good recovery,” Edwards said.  “We weren’t that fast, so we’ve got some things we need to work on here.  It looks like Matt (Kenseth) was pretty good, so we’ll compare notes with him, but that’s a long day.  It feels like you got stuck in a room with Mike Tyson and he’s not happy.  It’s just tough.  That was rough.  I was right behind that accident at the end, but it’s such a tight race track.  I knew when they had that caution we were going to have some trouble, I’m just glad we didn’t get caught up in it.”

Edwards will go Texas Motor Speedway sitting in 11th place in the standings, 47 points behind teammate Greg Biffle for the lead.

I also have to agree with NASCAR spokesperson Kerry Tharp that if the $100,000 fine was still left, then something was still wrong with the race car.  If there was no issues with the car, why would there still be a fine left for the team to pay.  And just remember people, $100,000 is pocket change to a person of Rick Hendrick’s caliber.  In my mind, a former executive from one of these four manufacturer’s should not be the one that makes the final decisions on an appeal process.  It adds more and more to the scrutiny that the 48 team has going with them already.

It most certainly has fans of a lot of Ford drivers wondering now.  “If it were an RFR car, would they have gotten the same treatment?”

I highly doubt it.  Hendrick has deep pockets, and like I said when you have a former exec from the same manufacturer that is appealing the penalties, it raises too many questions when an appeal is over turned by him.  I know that this is at-least the third time that Middlebrook has overturned a penalty for a Chevrolet Racing team.  It is the second time that he has done something for Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 48 team.  The other occurrence that I can remember is Clint Bowyers’ penalties being lowered a few years ago.  For many years I have questioned whether or not Chevrolet’s deep pockets are helping feed NASCAR to keep them going without issues, because if someone gets bailed out of an issue it is Chevrolet.

For many years now Jack Roush has been a big person to question some advantages that they have been given.  However, if you are going to have a final appeals process, don’t have a guy that is a former executive of the same division that the team races for.  To make it fair, NASCAR could have someone from each manufacturer do the opposite car, but not one man from one car manufacturer.  It is going to keep going and it will begin to raise many eyebrows, and has already started.

I called this a couple of days ago when I heard Hendrick talking, I’m not the least bit surprised.  I know a lot of the media acted shocked, and some were expecting some minor turns from the original penalties but nothing as we seen today.  This is a complete 360 degree over-turn and it makes NASCAR look very bad in this situation, because it sends a message “Yeah I’ll let you get by, if you drive a Chevrolet.”

Let me point out that in 2009 at this point in the season, Carl Edwards was sitting much higher in the points standings by being in 4th place.  But it was the races that followed the first four that hurt Carl Edwards’ season with only two top-tens in seven races, and he had four finishes of 24th or worse.  This season, the team has had some very good race cars, point-blank.  However in two races, Carl Edwards was bitten by the hard sting of bad luck at Phoenix with a gas mileage event, and then at Bristol last weekend when he was caught in another mess that he could not avoid.  Besides that it has been good quality races.

So why are you griping about this season and comparing it to 2009 when we are just four races into the season.  Four races into the season there is nothing that you can tell is wrong with a team or its cars because we have not raced at enough venues and here are some of the main factors that we have to look at going into the rest of the season.

1.  New Team Members – Roush Fenway Racing had a major cut last season and they added new crew members to the roster last season, that will definitely factor into the performance at least the first ten races until everyone is completely adjusted with each other.

2.  Remember what worked last season isn’t going to always work this season, tire compound changes, the new electronic fuel injection system, and other factors come into play.

3.  Other teams have caught up – the biggest thing fans forget is other teams have done some research and have narrowed the distance themselves and you, a good example of that was Michael Waltrip Racing getting great finishes last weekend at Bristol.

Racing is a complex game of science and mystery, it is a place where just a little 1/4 inch turn in a bolt can make a huge difference in the handling characteristics of a race car, and 1 pound of air can kill you or bring you back to life in a race. Now those major changes that happened during the off-season, you ask what were they?

A key player was lost last season when all the cuts were laid down at Roush Fenway last season.  Engineers play a major part in the setups of the race cars each week, and now there is an engineer providing information towards the new EFI system.  Edwards lost his top engineer last season when he departed the team, now the team has Scott Graves and Brian Harrison. Also there is a new suspension man on the 99 crew, Joey Elliott.  Those are three key components that help setup the race car.

Now what they do have are two very seasoned veterans that have worked together for much of Carl Edwards’ career.  Bob Osborne as the crew chief and Pierre Kuettel, as car chief are still there.  The two know how to keep things going, and last weekend in Bristol, both showed their veteran experience by making sure the car was put back together safely and it helped gain two positions on the track.  Two positions, means two points people.  And we all know how important two points can be in the points race, don’t we?

So before you go and jump on the 2009 bandwagon, remember that the team has to work out several things and they will be a title contender.

Kenseth can say he went with Stewart but he did not get up to speed like Edwards did, and it shows on the restart, as Edwards was underneath him on the apron of the race track.  I always go back to the thing where if the hole is there, you take it.  Edwards did, and here comes the point of Carl Edwards losing his momentum.  He got beside Greg Biffle going into the corner and just like at most tracks with this design, the lower line loses momentum and has a tendency to drop back.  When he did, Kenseth ran into the back of Edwards, and it caused him to lose momentum, which allowed Kasey Kahne to pull to the outside of the 17 car, and from what I observed, it got Kenseth loose and sent him into the wall.  This was not something Carl Edwards should be apologizing for, nor is it something that Kenseth’s fans need to be calling him names for.

Matt Kenseth’s fans in the last two days have reminded me a lot of Jeff Gordon’s fans last season after the Talladega race with Trevor Bayne.  I think that it is a case where you are going to get criticized no matter what you did.  I know last season many fans put a target on Carl Edwards for not being aggressive enough.  Now he’s being criticized for being overly aggressive and he wasn’t.  I will probably taking some hits for what I am writing, however, this won’t be the first time and it won’t be the last time that I have to take it, but I can throw the counter punch just as well.

I have read everything today from fans calling Edwards terrible names to saying he did not belong at Roush Fenway Racing.  Here is the fact to the critic Kenseth fans, if it were not for Carl Edwards, Roush Fenway Racing would be hurting right now.  Edwards is the face of the team, he is the face of Ford Racing as well, and will be for a very long time.  And you can throw the debate up that Kenseth’s done more but in the last 5 years, Edwards stepped up and become the person Jack Roush expected him to be.  This was not an incident where Edwards literally went out and wrecked Kenseth, it was racing people, grow up and stop seeing one side of the picture here.

Edwards made an aggressive move, with a car that probably was no better than a 6th place car but he got home in fifth place.  It’s racing, and incidents like these happen with 3 to 5 laps remaining in the race.  It isn’t an illegal move to go below the white line at Las Vegas people, it’s part of the racing groove there, unlike at Talladega and Daytona.  I’m not the least bit disappointed in Carl Edwards racing, and still have the same feeling as I did yesterday that had Kenseth not hit Edwards, he might have not wrecked.  Get on with your life people and quick whining about a situation that was RACING.

We have a friend that owns property there. He is dead across the street from the track property. Actually, he’s less than 100 yards from the credentials/haulers entrance. The price is half to a third of the cost of other camping/parking properties. I called around and everyone on that street said $600 and $650 for the week, I was shocked. THAT’s why everyone can’t afford the races anymore. NOT TRUE with Dennis. I will use another post under this to put up his info. And I hope Chrissi will get on here, too. She’s been camping there longer than I have.

Beavercreek Camping 3032 Highway11E. Bluff City, TN 37618 (Bristol) (423) 389-2099 ———————————- Less than 100 yds from Credentials/Hauler Entrance! ———————————- Car parking, Sat. $20, Sun. $30. ———————————- Bristol Camping. Some electric available. Spring race: Can accommodate Motor homes down to tents. Call for pricing. ($300 AND UNDER!!) Weds. –> Monday. For elec site, please bring 50-75′ (10-12 guage) ext. cord. ———————————- 3 bd house ½ to 1 mile away, $75 per person, per night…Special $60. Included parking ONE car at main campsite for races. ———————————- Call Dennis @ (423) 389-2099

AP Photo/John RaouxIn this Feb. 17 photo, NASCAR official Dean Monroe looks over C-posts that were confiscated from Jimmie Johnson's car after it failed inspection.

I was one of the fans that was expecting a smaller slap on the wrist than NASCAR gave Chad Knaus and the 48 team yesterday when a heavy 25 points were docked and both Chad Knaus and his car chief Ron Malec were suspended for six races.  I do believe that the fines fit the crime and here is why, NASCAR gives teams so much tolerance on just about everything on these races but one area that you hear that is NASCAR’s untouchable area is the greenhouse area of the race car.  From past experience, most of these area’s are the same on each race car in NASCAR and they’re the area’s that NASCAR has the least amount of tolerance for modifications.

The biggest reason is for driver safety because it is the area that goes from the front windshield of the race car to the back window and does include the C-Post that were found to be modified on the 48 car two weeks ago when teams arrived in Daytona Beach.  Here is what I am hearing from a very reliable source, the templates NASCAR have could have still fit the car but the post could have still been modified.  It is a case of one of the area’s on the race car that can easily be caught by the naked eye, as it was two Friday’s ago.  Aerodynamics are a major part of this sport and it is the one area that teams try to use more ingenuity to play with the car and sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose as Knaus did.  I don’t care what Rick Hendrick says about this being the same car that the team ran at Talladega last Fall, but remember, Knaus did tell Johnson to back the car into the fence if he won there last year.

Knaus has been suspended four times now for modifications that did fit the specifications of their rules.  He’s had two six race suspensions, a 4 race suspension and a two race suspension.  Playing with the aerodynamics area of the car can be one of the best things but when you cross the gray area and go over.  I do believe that there is crew chief’s that NASCAR watches a little bit harder than others and Chad Knaus is one of them because of his past history.  Do I believe had this been a first time offender, they might have been let off a little bit easier than the 48 guys?  Most likely.

According to NASCAR, the key rule the No. 48 team was found to be in violation of was Section 20-2.1E — unapproved car body modifications, specifically any part of the car modified to enhance aerodynamic performance.

NASCAR I believe wants their series to be the most even grounds possible for racing, whether it comes to aerodynamics, team play, horse power, they want to keep it an even playing field.  I think what some fans do not understand is that gray area that a lot of people are discussing on the car is, if NASCAR feels that someone has modified it and gone out of the area with the modifications, they can do something without even putting the sticks on the car.  It is a hardcore debate but fact is, if these guy’s see something that doesn’t suit their views, they can ask it to be removed and you do stand a chance of being penalized.

There were some obvious modifications that the inspectors picked up on, and did some additional inspections with some gauges and stuff, and found that they were just too far out of tolerance to fix,” Sprint Cup director John Darby said when the violation was discovered. “So they were removed from the car.”

Knaus and his Hendrick crew chief teammate Steve Letarte were both fined and suspended for modified fenders that at the time Hendrick said were just in the gray area’s of the car back in 2007 when the Car of Tomorrow was first introduced.  That gray fine line you are given to work with is very small, and when you modify the C-Pillars on the car that the 48 team where they deflect wind off of the rear spoiler, it is huge, very huge and could have been a great advantage on the track.  I do not know if Hendrick will be able to win an appeal on this case, because the man charged with the crime is a repeat offender, and has the reputation to do it.

We will just have to wait and see.

Edwards did not get around to lead lap one of the race as he was passed by both of his teammates at the drop of the green flag, as a huge wreck brought the caution flag out on the first.  He reported to his crew chief Bob Osborne that he was running a little tight in the corners.  His crew made small adjustments through the entire event to help with the cars handling.  However, just passed halfway in the race, Edwards reported to crew chief Bob Osborne that the fuel pressure gauge was not working properly.  After paying attention it to it for some time, it did not seem to cause any further issues so he made the decision to get back into racing.  He was up to 15th by lap 133, but had fallen back to 28th with just 50 laps remaining in the event.

On lap 158, Edwards made his stop for four tires and while.  While under caution, the car of Juan Montoya went spinning into the back of one of the jet driers on the back straightaway, hitting the back-end and causing a huge flame to erupt from the 200 gallons of jet fuel in the drier.  NASCAR was worried that the track would not be race-able but in the end it was.  Just before the restart, the crew member who was sent to the back stretch to help the drivers get buckled in removed a tearoff that was considered working on the car and it meant a rear penalty for Edwards which sent him to the end of the line in the race.  He was forced to restart in 28th in the race.

Edwards then decided when the green flag dropped it was time to go forward.  That stopped when he was in an accident on lap 187 which looked as if he almost avoided the incident.  The car had damage to the splitter and some damage to the right front fender.  The crew was able to repair most of the damage with several stops while under caution to keep him on the lead lap.

With only seven laps to go, he restarted in 22nd.  He had moved up to 18th by the time another multi-car crash happened to force a green-white-checkered finish.  Edwards was sitting in 12th place, and was able to gain 4 more positions on the restart and finish eighth as his teammate Matt Kenseth scored his second Daytona 500 win and Jack Roush’s 300th win.

I’m just really glad Matt ended up in Victory Lane,” Edwards said.  “That’s huge for Roush Fenway, for Ford, for Best Buy.  That’s as big as it gets, and it ended up okay for us, too, for everything that we went through with the penalties and tearing the nose off of it.  To finish eighth is huge.  I think after that caution we were ready to go hard and then we had that penalty and we had to go back.  That kind of screwed up our strategy, but that’s okay.  You can never say shoulda, woulda because we very well could be wrecked, so I’m happy as far as heading in the right direction.  Thanks to Fastenal and Ford, and we’ll head to Phoenix later this week.”