Edwards expects give and take in the Chase
By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
Carl Edwards has finished second four times this season, but don’t expect him to use his bumper to turn some of those seconds into wins during the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup—at least not early on.
“I think you have to let it go down to the end of the season,” Edwards said. “I think at Homestead (in the season finale) there might be some more temptation, because you’ll know where you stand.
“But you have to be very careful with that stuff—early. Even if you’re completely in the right and you’re paying a guy back, or let’s say a guy just ran into me, and I go around the corner and I say, ‘I’m going to run into him, and I’m going to move him over.’
“That can go wrong in a number of ways. You can collect someone else who’s now upset at you. That guy might not take it the way you think it should be taken, and he could retaliate—anything could happen. Or you could just cut a tire down, and you’re in trouble.”
In the Chase, Edwards doesn’t expect the type of battle Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson waged last Saturday at Richmond, where they took turns spinning each other.
“I think things are different now than they were last week and the guys in the Chase know that,” Edwards said. “Last week was last week. We were fighting for three points. The guy that won was going to get three points. Other than that, the guys in the Chase weren’t racing for the same thing that they are racing for now.
“Right now, everybody realizes that there are huge implications to anything that goes on. I think you will see, at least for the beginning of the Chase, pretty polite drivers and a lot more give and take. That’s self-preservation, and I think that is natural.”