CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Officially, Carl Edwards is forever enshrined in stock-racing lore with his induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame on Friday evening.
Eight years after his abrupt decision to step away from NASCAR Cup Series competition, Edwards is still pinching himself, cherishing the honor after the sport left its arms wide open for Edwards’ return.
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If anything, that warm welcome back has been what Edwards has struggled to wrap his head around.
“The most surprising thing is the realization that I can’t separate my life from this sport,” Edwards said during a Thursday teleconference. “And I did. I walked away eight years ago. I turned my back, and I walked out of the room, and it was scary. And over the last eight years I felt odd about that. But for NASCAR to welcome me back, it’s made me realize that this sport, it’s a part of me. It’s who I am. It’s a part of my family. My life is shaped by this, and I think NASCAR knew that more than I did.
“And for them to welcome me back like this and show me that and give me this honor, I guess that’s been the most surprising thing, and really the the most impactful part of all this.”
His return to the NASCAR world began two years ago at Darlington Raceway, rejoining the fraternity upon being named one of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers, part of a yearlong celebration of the sport’s 75th anniversary. But while it was a moment of celebration, there was also a moment of pause.
“When I got invited back to Darlington, I was really nervous to go. You can ask my wife,” Edwards said Friday in the Hall of Fame’s Grand Hall. “I just didn’t know the reception. And I was blown away. I was shocked. I remember when we did the introduction, I was waiting to hear what the crowd would do, and they cheered. And I told Dale (Earnhardt) Jr., oh my gosh. He said, ‘Dude! We miss you!’ You don’t know how much it means to me.”
Edwards spent much if not all of his career in solitude. He was not one to make friends with the men and women he raced against. All he concerned himself with was being the best driver on the track. In large part, that played to his favor statistically. But Edwards regrets that mindset years later.
“I read this book Georges St. Pierre, a UFC fighter, wrote,” Edwards said. “And one of the things he said in the book was, ‘I don’t understand why people hate their competitors, why they have all these mean things to say. I can’t be a fighter without my opponent. My opponent makes me what I love to be.’ And I thought, Oh! Like, this light went off. I thought, I missed that my whole career. I thought of it wrong.
“I didn’t love and respect those guys for the fact that they were so good. And it was that iron sharpens iron. I mean, they made me great. And if I had to do it over again, I’d go back. I’d be best friends with these guys off the track. And we’d still race like crazy, but I could have done that better.”
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Those same competitors, Edwards later said during his induction speech, helped add a necessary dose of humility to his life.
“I came in with a passion,” he said. “I wanted to literally race more than anything. I’d have given anything to just be in the car. Didn’t care about anything else. And then it got kind of interesting. You’re winning. You know, I’m kind of a big deal. Started walking around. I cared more than I should’ve about what I look like, what people thought of me, whether I was tough enough, whether I made enough money.
“And you guys found the cracks in that facade of reputation, OK? And you pointed them out. And it hurt. ‘These people don’t know me. Why are they treating me this way?’ And I realized: ‘It’s because you’re kind of becoming a [expletive].’ You’ll know this period because I didn’t have my shirt on the whole time. I had to realize that there’s a huge difference between reputation and character. Huge. And you helped me to develop that character and understand it. No matter how much shiny stuff there is around, it’s who you really are that matters.”
Edwards’ journey to the pinnacle of NASCAR was, in some measures, impossibly quick. In another universe, he explained Friday, that path was impossible altogether.
“This is hard for me to tell,” Edwards prefaced. “You realize there’s like a one-in-a-million chance you get to drive these cars. And I knew that my only chance was to win at the local dirt track.”
And so he did, racing and winning frequently in dirt modifieds in the early 2000s. Simultaneously, Edwards was lending a hand at Mike Mittler’s Craftsman Truck Series team shop. All he wanted was a chance to drive that No. 63 Ford.
“It was like, ‘Carl, you’re never driving the truck,”” Edwards recalled. “Mittler said, ‘Look, I get it. You’re winning these dirt races you’re doing. Don’t mean anything. The best drivers in the world come out of Silver Crown.””
So after two championships in the modified ranks, Edwards and his family sold off everything they had, amassing $14,000. But it wasn’t quite enough for a USAC Silver Crown car. He and his family needed to sacrifice everything if Edwards was going to purchase one of those vehicles.
“Mom and dad, their life savings were $18,000. That was it,” Edwards said. “And I said, ‘OK, mom, here’s what I got. Gene Beach has got a Silver Crown car. It’s like 30 grand. It’s a smoking deal. I don’t have any money to rebuild anything, but we can run like two races. We gotta buy this car. My dad said, ‘That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Hell no.’ Mom said, ‘This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. But do you think it’ll work?’ I was like, ‘I got no clue.””
Edwards, whose father’s cousin is former Cup driver Ken Schrader, called a trusted family friend who worked at Schrader’s dirt shop.
“He said, ‘I’ll tell you what, junior. Sometimes you just gotta say, what the hell?”” Edwards said. “I told my mom that. She said, ‘Screw it. Let’s go do it.’ We went to the bank, got her life savings out, took it, bought that Silver Crown car. Two races in, got hired by a bunch of people and it took off. It was crazy.
“You were my age, mom. I can’t believe you did that. You’re insane.”
It was only insane if it didn’t work. Thanks to Edwards’ ferocious drive and natural ability to extract raw speed out of his race cars, it worked.
The reward for his family’s sacrifices is now bestowed upon Edwards for life as a NASCAR Hall of Famer.
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