Edwards Better Rival To Kyle Busch Than Dale Jr.

On lap 469 at the Bristol night race, Carl Edwards stated that he had to make a decision when he drew up on the rear bumper of the no. 18 car driven by Kyle Busch who was leading the race. He made the decision to get into him and get Kyle loose, performing the textbook ‘bump-and-run’ at a place where we thought it was gone.

Carl took the lead with 30 laps to go and never relinquished the top spot. It is his 2 win in a row and 6th for the season.

It was looking like no one was going to have anything for the no. 18 Toyota fielded by Joe Gibbs racing, but with Edwards winning 3 of the last 4 races, he will have some bullets in his gun when the points reset after Richmond.
After Edwards, there are only two other chase contending drivers who have more than one win. Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne have each managed to earn 2 victories, a handful with just one victory and some surprising names with no wins so far.

It was established early in the season that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. had the potential to be rivals with Kyle Busch since in a round about way Junior took Kyle’s ride at Hendrick Motorsports and the Richmond ‘spin-and-lose’ incident solidified the rivalry with the fans. It also made sense to pit the sports’ most popular driver against arguably the least popular.

As the season progressed there were not too many instances of Kyle and Dale battling it out as the two seemed to not be around each other much. When asked whether the rivalry existed or not, Dale Jr. replied that it was sort of assumed that he should be gunning for Kyle, but he wasn’t really subscribing to the whole deal. Busch was winning races, but equally impressive was the methodical way that Earnhardt was clicking off good finishes and hovering in the top spot in the points. He had dismissed the Richmond incident as just being a racing deal and didn’t seem too concerned with any of it.

Earnhardt is dealing with his own set of circumstances and being involved in rivalry doesn’t seem to fit his new demeanor driving for Hendrick.
Staying in the top 5 in points in the Cup Series, wearing the hat of a championship contending Nationwide series team owner and partnering with Rick Hendrick seems to be enough on his plate to be bothered by a rivalry that probably doesn’t amount to be a hill of beans with him.

Then along came Carl Edwards who just signed a new record deal with Roush with a new sponsor, crossing paths with Kyle Busch whom a lot still say that he is motivated to show the world that Hendrick made a mistake letting him go. Carl is motivated to win his first championship and the only thing standing in his was is the no. 18 car.

The feud exploded when Busch rammed the side of Edward’s car twice in the cool down lap after Edwards took the checkers, which in response Edwards returned the favor by dumping Kyle in a round of turn about is fair play.

The rivalry between Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch makes a lot more sense in many ways. First of all, if Earnhardt and Busch tangled many more times, the no. 18 car wouldn’t fit the templates after the team added all of the armor and bullet proof glass. Busch and Edwards can beat each other’s fenders in and the fans will cheer especially if the result is the same as at Bristol. Carl is the type of driver who seems to perform better when something has him fired up. He has already established that the way that he viewed the no. 18 car as simply as an obstacle that was between him and 10 bonus points in the chase and that Busch is going to get driven the way he has driven others.

Another element that makes it more attention-grabbing is how vocal that Carl’s team owner, Jack Roush, has been about the Toyota teams. Jack has been a critic of Toyota on all levels and has pulled no punches when talking about their ethics and procedures in the sport. It makes for not only a driver/team rivalry, but one that also crosses owner and manufacturer lines to really heat things up.

Even team owner Joe Gibbs got involved when he approached Edwards in the garage area after the race and informed him that “you reap what you sow”. Carl responded by saying that he believed in that [unspoken rule] and that’s exactly why things went down the way that they had. The biggest irony was that Gibbs was referring to the manner in which Carl raced Busch who has done his fair share of ruffling feathers this season.

One thing is for certain, it’s probably not the last we have seen of the ‘feather ruffling’ this season as things continue to heat up in the battle for the championship.