BRISTOL, TN - APRIL 17: Carl Edwards, driver of the #19 Comcast Business Toyota, celebrates winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on April 17, 2016 in Bristol, Tennessee. (Photo by Matt Sullivan/Getty Images)
Carl Edwards discusses a return to dirt racing
Shane Walters
Carl Edwards has plans to return to the dirt oval tracks – Gateway Dirt Nationals, Pevely and Moberly all discussed
Carl Edwards used to carry business cards at the dirt track. He’d pass them out and offer to drive race cars for dirt racing teams. That sent him on a path to NASCAR, where he collected 28 wins.
Then, one day, Carl Edwards took his ball and went home. He still had time left on his contract, he was still competitive, yet Carl Edwards abruptly left the sport.
The why part of that is still mostly a mystery. Essentially, Edwards said he was retiring because he wanted to. But, racing is something that’s in the blood. It’s a virus that can’t be kicked.
On Sunday, Carl Edwards accepted an award for Sportsmanship. He was gifted with the honor via the Musial Awards presented by Maryville University.
“I’ve been doing a lot of stuff that I put off for about 15 years,” Carl Edwards told Kevin Howdeshell of STL Motorsport Magazine. Basically, hanging out with a lot of friends and family. Travelin’ a little bit, I traveled all over the place.”
“We’ve also been farming a bunch. That’s my source of income now. So, I’ve been watching the weather a lot.”
Why’d you stop racing?
“Well, it’s pretty simple,” Carl Edwards states.
“My life, I’ve literally woke up, thought about racin’. Went to bed, thinking about racin’. I dreamed about racin’. I stayed in hotels with people and their like, ‘Man, you’re up all night, talkin’ about racin’, in your sleep.’ ”
Future racing?
Now, Carl Edwards has tentative thought for his future racing career. Thoughts of Global Rallycross and dirt oval racing at Federated Auto Parts Raceway are being tossed around.
While a break from racing can be nice for some racers, it’s nearly impossible to just kick the bug on a whim. Carl Edwards disappeared like Casper the ghost.
But, he only said he was retiring from being a full-time NASCAR driver. He never said he was done with racing completely.
I have a feeling I’ll drive some dirt cars.
-Carl Edwards
“I have a feeling I’ll drive some dirt cars. I love dirt racing,” Edwards said. “I miss it. Basically for me, I was riding my bicycle the other day and I was thinking, ‘Man, I just about got this door closed.’ In my mind.”
“I’m just getting to where I can get up in the morning and not think about racing and kind of move on. But there will be a time where it’ll be real hard not to go up to Moberly or come over here to Pevely or something and race a little bit. When that time comes it’ll be a lot of fun.”
By Moberly, Carl Edwards is referring to a dirt oval track known as Randolph County Raceway, near his current residence. By Pevely, Edwards is referring to Ken Schrader’s St. Louis area dirt oval track, known today as Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55.
Gateway Dirt Nationals
St. Louis has a shiny new event for the Missouri native to attend. The Gateway Dirt Nationals is an indoor dirt racing event hosted in downtown St. Louis. Would Carl Edwards be interested in that?
I need to call Kenny Wallace
-Carl Edwards
“I’m probably going to be a little rusty. So, I need to call Kenny Wallace. I heard he’s got some real fast cars.”
“Somewhere down the road, it will be a lot of fun.”
Global Rallycross
“I talked to Steve Arpin on and off about the Global Rallycross cars. We’ve talked about doing a test with that.”
Steve Arpin is also a former NASCAR driver. Between 2009-2012, Arpin competed in the ARCA Racing Series, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series. Three ARCA wins and two top 10’s were the end result.
These days, Steve Arpin is involved in a very different kind of racing. He’s running supercross events in a race car. A new-ish form of auto racing. It features high powered 4 wheel drive cars with left handers, right handers and a few jumps in between.
It’s full contact racing. In summery, it’s short track, road course, supercross, oval, dirt and pavement racing.
Arpin currenty drives the Loenbro Motorsports machine. The team fields two Ford Fiesta ST’s in the Red Bull Global Rallycross Series.
Carl Edwards can do whatever he wants to do, at any moment. It appears, that moment is quickly approaching.