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Carl Edwards is being pushed the pit road by car chief Pierre Kuettel on Saturday afternoon in practice

Certainly the media has blown one question of proportion to Carl Edwards since that November night when Carl Edwards lost the title to a tie to Tony Stewart.  A question on where could you have gotten that one little point that would have gotten the championship?

“I think I’ve been asked that one-point question 4,000 times,” Edwards said. “But we didn’t let that disappointment slow us down. It gave us real motivation.

“So it is nice to come here and show everyone that it isn’t just talk. Everybody at Roush went back to work and kept their heads down.”

There is one key word in Carl Edwards’ remarks “motivation.”  A word that you did not hear Denny Hamlin speak of when he was knocked down by the defeat of the 2010 series championship to Jimmie Johnson.  Instead of letting the tie for the championship get to Carl Edwards and his team, it has given him motivation to come back in 2012 and be better than he was last year.  While I can probably go back and name a couple of places that Carl Edwards could have gotten that one little point that kept him from winning the title last season, he has moved on and used everything to pull forward and go for more in 12′.

Winning the pole for the Daytona 500 came as a surprise for Edwards, who was looking for his teammate to be faster than he was, showed on Sunday that when you don’t let things bring you down, it is better to use it as a pull for motivation to do better.  It is hard to do better than Carl Edwards did last season, as he led most of the season, scored the most top-fives, and top-tens, won the Coors Light Pole Award last season and had a better average finish than any driver did in the Chase since it was put in place in 2004.

Bob Osborne, who is out this weekend because of the passing away of his father, most certainly has gotten more fire from losing the championship.  As Edwards even said during the banquet back in December he was back at the shop working on things to make them even better this season.  Crew Chiefs are leaders and provide a great deal of confidence towards the drivers, and of all the driver and crew chief pairings besides the pairing of Johnson and Knaus, Edwards and Osborne have worked together as long as anyone.  I have read comments from fans that have debated the abilities of Osborne since 2004, and many have even said he was a terrible pick for Edwards.  I have stood behind Osborne, and even debated back when Jack Roush made the call in 2006 to put Bob Osborne with Jamie McMurray and put an unproven guy on the pit box of the 99.

Since Osborne has returned he’s proven to be a great leader and has put together a great team that is certainly capable of being a title contender this season, and with their crew chief away for the weekend, the team’s performance showed great determination by putting together the fastest car in the garage in Daytona.  It’s just the start of that motivation kicker of losing the title 2011.

Reading several opinions through social media there has been a topic that has caught my mind.  Sponsors on major teams and not going to start and park organizations, well here is what I have to say on the topic of discussion.

Sponsors are not out to lose money with a small team and no-name driver.  They want to have success on the track and with the advertisement program that a team has and they know that having a bigger organization it will cost more to sponsor the team, however, in the end they make more through the advertisement that certain drivers can provide.  Take UPS for instance, they were a full-season sponsorship on the No. 6 Ford Fusion last season and for the past 3 seasons with David Ragan, this year they have cut back their sponsorship to a one race deal with Carl Edwards at Kentucky.  Why many are asking?  Well the fact is who can provide the sponsors more air time?  Carl Edwards or David Ragan, and who finishes up front more regularly?

Edwards may only have that 1 race with UPS, however, their logo will be on the car for the entire season and they feel that it will give them more advertisement from the 99 car as an associate sponsor than as a full-time sponsor on the 6 car.  Kellogg’s did the same-thing a few years back when they went from being a full-time sponsor on the 5 car at Hendrick Motorsports to only 2 races, and now 4 this season after re-signing a multi-year deal on the 99 car.  Fortune 500 companies want a good face to appear with their name, not a driver that has trouble finishing with consistency on the track.

Roush Fenway has struggled to find sponsorship for its other 3 cars, and fans have questioned why Kellogg’s, Subway, UPS, or Best Buy didn’t just go with the 17 car full-time.  Here is what someone who did not want to be named mentioned “Carl Edwards attracts sponsorships to whomever he runs for, he is a natural spokesperson for the sponsor, he takes care of them and he can finish up front, if it were not for Edwards the 99 car would be in the same state as the 17 and 6.”

The fact is, back in the 90′s, sponsors could afford to handle one entire season in Sprint Cup, now with the state of the economy isn’t the same and there aren’t many companies that can handle forking out 14-18 million dollars a race season to one team.  If people can go back and remember to when Aflac signed on with Edwards at first, it was rumored to be over 20 million a season and in the end they began to sell part of their season off.  Then this season Fastenal is taking over as the main majority sponsor for 15 points races, and 3 non-points races.

There are some drivers that can carry a sponsor without having wins and a lot of success, look at Dale Earnhardt Jr., his fans still flock to his hauler every weekend and his stuff sells, which helps keep money flowing to the car.  Edwards is the same way, he had a couple of losing seasons, but was able to keep sponsorship on the car and has came back solid.  There will be six sponsors on the car this season.  Let’s not forget a companies image and how drivers can effect that.  Good example of that came from two brothers in Sprint Cup last season with Kyle and Kurt Busch.  One had their sponsorship lifted from the car after he pulled a stunt at Texas wrecking another driver, and then the other lost his job by pulling another stunt at the season finale and the sponsor felt it was best to find someone different and with a better imagine in the race car.

Sponsors are very picky about who they want inside their cars and they play more of a role in choosing who they go with than the team owners do.  Driver attraction can be the biggest part because I think had Edwards gone to JGR instead of staying at RFR, he would have taken Aflac with him.  However, he made the decision and stayed.  Back in the day it was more of the car that sponsors looked at on who to sponsor, now it is the driver and Carl Edwards is a main attraction for them.  Fans can bicker about sponsors not wanting to be on the start and park cars, but you can’t expect big names company to put a pile of money into a team with little or no success at all.

Then there is the debate about the manufacturers and who they support in majority situations.  Every manufacturer has a team that they primarily support, Roush Fenway is Fords prime organization, Edwards is the face of Ford, Hendrick’s is Chevrolet’s prime team, Johnson has been the big face of Chevrolet, Gibbs has been Toyota’s prime team, with Busch as its main driver, and Dodge has only had Penske the past two seasons and it will have drivers Brad Keselowski and AJ Allmindinger.  I am in support of NASCAR cutting the field down to 36 cars per race, and it will make things more competitive on the track, atleast until the economy can pull itself back up.

Carl Edwards and Bob Osborne hope the near miss from 2011 gives them the edge to do better in 2012(credit Autostock)

It was tough losing the championship last season for both driver and crew chief.  On a day when the 99 car seemed to be the dominant chassis in the field, Edwards fell one position short of winning the championship to Tony Stewart.  It also showed the signs of maturity for both Carl Edwards and his long-time crew chief Bob Osborne who made several decisions during the event that he questioned later on.  It was just two seasons ago that Denny Hamlin faced a similar situation and many questioned if he would be able to rebound, however, the difference was, Carl Edwards did not let someone get in his head and force a loss of concentration and determination as Hamlin did the year before with Jimmie Johnson.

Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus had to go through very similar seasons before they finally won their first series’ championship in 2006.  Johnson had been a title contender every year since he began racing, and lost the 2004 title to Kurt Busch by a slim 8 points.  The fact is, drivers have to lose before they can win it all.  With all that put in place, you really have to think that after losing the title twice over the course of four seasons; Carl Edwards has learned the lessons to win the title in Sprint Cup.

“I feel a little more excited, I feel more confidence,” Edwards said on during Preseason Thunder testing. “I didn’t know if that’s how I’d feel. I didn’t know if it would be something that would feel nagging, or something like that. I feel good, excited to go racing. What happened last year was one of the greatest battles I’ve ever been in [in] in a race car, and I feel like I learned a lot. … I’ve accepted the fact that we didn’t win it, but I’m also really excited about the way that we could potentially run this year. So I feel more confident than I’ve felt, ever. Kind of more calm, you know? Because I know we can do it.”

Osborne himself had to accept the fact that there could have been somethings he did differently and possibly could have changed the outcome of a few races.  However, he, himself has learned from last season and put it behind him as a crew chief.

I reached it pretty quick,” he said. “We show up to the race track every weekend with the intention of doing the best we possibly can. Regardless of the outcome, myself and Carl and everyone on this program shows up and does absolutely the best they can. When the weekend’s over, I don’t look back, and I don’t ask my guys to look back. I know Carl doesn’t look back and say, ‘Man, we didn’t do a good enough job here, we didn’t do a good enough job there.’ We do highlight the things we could have done differently, but we understand the particular situations don’t necessarily go the way you want them to go. … There were a lot of opportunities that we didn’t get the absolute most out of, but that didn’t have anything to do with anyone not doing a good job or not doing the best they could.”

“I think it’s important to let it all go,” he said. “But I am human, too. There are times you look back and say, one more point here would have made a huge difference. And you look at not only things that our program did, but you also look at things other programs did to change how the points wound up. There are a lot of things that we look at. But that was last year. We worry about this year now.”

For the most part, a majority of the team that helped put them into championship contention last season is still there this season, including long-time car chief Pierre Kuettel, who will be working his 13th season with Roush Fenway Racing, half of the 25 year span that the organization has been in NASCAR.  Building a relationship between the three main members of the crew have helped make this season a strong contender for the title once again in 2012.  Last season was an odd and rare deal where the guy that has the best average finish doesn’t win the series championship, and it came down to winning races, and both the driver and crew chief agree that there is nothing that they would change on how they ran last year.

“Truthfully, I think we ran a hell of a Chase,” Edwards said. “If we do that again this year, I challenge anyone to do what Tony did. I don’t know that that’s ever going to be possible again. No offense to anybody or anything, but if you said, you have to go win half the Chase races to win this championship, I’d say, man, I don’t know that anybody could do that. But they did. What I’m saying is, over the next years, if we can perform like we’re performing now, we’re going to be tough to beat.”

I look back and wonder myself, because winning five out of ten events is something that doesn’t happen but once in a blue moon as the saying goes.  Edwards was the strong contender from the time the green flag dropped last season in Daytona.  I think when you also look at the contention span since 2005, you will see there is a comparison between the 99 and 48, as the driver and crew chief have bonded together and made themself into championship contenders just as the Johnson/Knaus pair did.  In that span, the 48 team has a better average finishing number by two positions than the 99, Edwards has been getting better and better since 2007.  I don’t expect any fall down like the 11 team faced in 2

The No. 99 Fastenal Ford Fusion that Edwards will be racing during Speedweeks inside the shop (credit: Fastenal Racing Facebook)

Carl Edwards will be running in the Budweiser Shootout, Gatorade Duels and the Daytona 500 in his all new blue and white colors when racing season gets kicked off less than a month away when the series will get fired up for the Shootout.

Fastenal will be the sponsor for Edwards’ No. 99 Ford Fusion for the complete run of Speedweeks this season.  Edwards will be running the Fastenal colors in 18 total races this season, three of which will be the two non-points paying events in Daytona and the Sprint All-Star Challenge in May.

For the past two seasons, Edwards has had the blue, white and grey colors covering his NASCAR Nationwide Series Ford Mustang and with the help of Fastenal was able to get his car owner Jack Roush’s first NASCAR Nationwide Series car owners’ championship last season.

It was announced late last season that Fastenal had signed a multi-year deal to be the main sponsor for Carl Edwards after Aflac decided to give up the majority of their events for the future.

If you are interested to know what sponsor will be on the car for each event visit our schedule page and we have the majority of the events fille