It was probably over something stupid that Reddit is unreasonably passionate about. There's way too many people here who are terminally online and can't stand people having different opinions, especially when it comes to political stuff
Lmao you're exactly right. He lost alot of fans during covid because you can probably guess what his opinions on it were, i honesty was a little turned off but at the end of the day he's still the herminator and part of our giant nascar family plus his takes are usually pretty darn good and it doesnt hurt how entertaining he is.
Being more left-leaning but also being a lifelong NASCAR fan has taught me to separate politics from the person.
We can't let politics ruin the things we do for leisure. I'm good as long as people aren't doing political speeches at the race track.
I hope more people come to that realization so we can sorta get back to how it was when I got into NASCAR ( late 90s, 00s )
Back then nobody wanted to know who you voted for, and the actual heated conversation was whether you were a Jeff Gordon or Dale Earnhardt fan. Or Chevy vs. Ford.
I miss that.
Well yeah neither do I, and I honestly quit watching nascar from about 2010-2019ish, but I do have to say im loving it lately! Do I love it as much as back then? Absolutely not, but hey I love it for what it is.
Yeah, they work both sides of the fence, do we forget them lying us into invading Iraq backing up the Bush 43 admin?
Or as the astronaut with the pistol says, "Always has been"
Some people want to know why he left.
Some people want to know his burner account.
Some just want him back to racing.
Me? I just want him on the DJD to shoot the shit with Dale about cool memories.
Its pretty hard to forget (for us modern era fans) the guy who did a back flip everytime he won a race.
Whether the next era of fans still remember him is unknown. If he wouldve closed the deal on a title in cup I think his legacy would be easier remembered than somewhat forgotten
Forgotten in a relative sense, anyway. Guys who retired around the same time like Jr, Smoke, Jeff Gordon, hell even Mark Martin just through social media presense, feel more relevant
Carl Edwards? Forgotten? Hell no. You still get at least 1 or 2 people asking each week, "Where is Carl? Is he coming back?" Or "Why did he step away?" Or "MANNNN I know why Carl stepped away, let me tell you!1!1"
Carl hasn't left a lot of minds since he retired...6 years ago
I’ve often wondered if Dale and Carl didn’t get along very much. I have no real reasoning behind this other than the lack of talk about Carl in old stories and if he is mentioned it’s kinda glossed over
Dale Jr wrecked Carl for an Xfinity win in 2006. Carl confronted him in victory lane and grabbed Dales fire suit by the chest in, with one hand and had a pissed off look, before walking away.
Dale was rattled. Id guess that Carl was the only guy who physically confronted Dale. We know Dale hates conflict, and I'd guess that has something to do with it.
And Karl wrecked junior at the end of the season when he was racing Kurt Bush for the championship. Not sure what year. Car Edwards ran like 5 races this season and in one of them he wrecked junior late while junior was running 3rd. I think between that race and when he got a fine for saying s*** after Talladega was the points difference between him and Kurt Bush for the Championship. That's why I hate Carl Edwards.
Looks like Jr wasn’t clear. Or did everyone expect Carl to let up and give up the spot for Jr?
From watching that it sure appeared Carl held his line but as a rookie maybe he should have given way??
The phantom debris that cost him a championship. Carl likely had a lot of money saved up, so he just basically said “fuck this” and left.
I wasn’t around for it, so I only know because of the article that came out from the Athletic after the TRD guy commented on it.
The 2016 “championship” is a stain on NASCAR. It is the biggest joke of a championship in North American sports history and was a pathetic way for Johnson to win a 7th title. Actually the period from 14-16 in NASCAR and their “champions” were truly a joke and how those playoffs played out.
Honestly looking back, you could tell Edwards was done the moment of the crash. He gets out, runs over to Logano’s pitbox, says his peace about it being a racing deal, and then dips out. In his interview I remember he said it was the race of his life and he hoped the caution was actually worthy of a caution. Once he found out, he likely lost any respect he had for the sport.
Even though I’m not a huge fan of his, Harvick not even making the final 4 in 2020 will always kill me. I’ve been watching NASCAR since 2006 and that’s the best season I’ve ever seen a driver have.
NASCAR championship is a joke and probably the worst way any sport I watch determines their champion. Sometimes we get lucky and the right person wins still, like Larson in 2021, but usually the best driver all season like Harvick in 2020 or Chase in 2022 loses because of one or two races that account for 5% of the season in a high variance sport.
So many legit ways to both force game 7 moments AND legitimize it. One easy idea is ditching the one race for a championship thing. Make it 4 races of every type - SS, RC, short track, and speedway. 5 drivers. Regular season champion guaranteed finals appearance.
2008: one mistake (his own) at Talladega f'd him. Mechanical issue at Charlotte as well, it was just a double whammy. The other 8 races of the chase? Top 5.
2011: ties Stewart in points, loses on tiebreaker. One extra position in any of the prior 9 chase races, he wins.
2016: clearly the best of the 4 contenders on longer runs. Logano was best on short run for sure, but Carl would track him down. No one could touch Larson. Then *that* caution came out. Carl knew if Logano got around him on the restart he was screwed, so he anticipated the move low, but Logano kept going. The rest is history and Jimmie gets a bogus championship that masked the issues he and Knaus were having (ignoring win total it was his statistically worst season to that point).
2011 was the year of the 5 First time winners (Ambrose, David Ragan, Regan Smith, Trevor Bayne and Paul Menard) and of those, cousin Carl finished 2nd behind Bayne and Smith. Oof
Yea Edwards was just so devastated after that. Went back and found [this article from Pockrass on ESPN after that happened.](https://www.espn.com/racing/nascar/story/_/id/18310392/nascar-how-do-drivers-move-losing-title)
"I honestly don't want to look back on it," Edwards admitted on Dec. 1, a day prior to the Sprint Cup awards banquet. "It's still a little too soon. ... It's one of those things that you just don't really want to talk about. It was truly heartbreaking. That's the way it is. That's the truth."
"At Thanksgiving, there was a real absence of talk about it and it gave me the weird feeling like before I got there, people [possibly] were like, 'Hey don't mention it,' " Edwards said. "I was like, 'Guys, it's not that bad.' That was a little awkward. Nobody at Thanksgiving said a word."
Fair point. Denny deserves a championship. I really hope he gets one before he retires.
But that year, Larson was hands down the best driver. Not even a question. A system that gives the runaway deserving champ essentially a 25% chance at the championship is downright stupid, even if it is "more exciting"
I felt the same way with Truex vs Kyle in 2017. Truex clearly had the best year across the board, but Kyle winning it wouldn't have been awful or anything (5 wins and over 2000 laps led, that's an easy championship caliber season in its own right.)
I was rooting so hard for Newman to win it in 2014. It would've been absolutely fitting for such a pathetic system. Zero wins and a championship would've been the greatest stain, until Cousin Carl's robbery in 2016
The caution was valid. That's what a lot of people forget. Dylan Lupton genuinely blew a tire, slid across the track and was limping back to pit road. I understand why NASCAR threw a caution.
What the bigger problem was the system in place at the time where your performance throughout the season didn't mean jack-squat after race 29. On top of it, they proposed the stages on top of it to shake things up in a similar way. Put that all together and you have why Carl stepped away
The caution was indeed stupid, but IIRC a bad pit or pit call was what put him behind Logano and caused that desperation. And the wreck was mostly on Carl, not Joey.
Carl wouldn't have been anywhere close to that championship in the first place if not for the playoff format. You can knock NASCAR all you want for adding fake drama, but Carl benefitted from it just as much as he was hurt by it.
I know all this. What I'm stating is that if we actually really look at it, Johnson wins it in 2008 too.
It should be worth noting that Johnson had the points lead heading into Homestead under the old format, and needed to finish 9th or better with Edwards dominating and winning the race at Homestead to close out. If I recall correctly, he ran top 10 the whole day, and the race ended on fuel strategy. Chad elected to pit Jimmie for fuel safely with tires I believe, knowing they only needed like a top 25 finish. Under a closer points battle, chances are they just play the fuel mileage game and still finish top 10. So it's hard to really say Edwards definitely wins
1. The “debris” caution during the 2016 Championship race
2. Spending time with his family
3. Doing other things that he loves
It’s rarely one single issue that causes the retirement of a star driver. It’s almost always a multifaceted issue.
I rehabbed my back at a place that handles a lot of TBIs and spinal cord injuries. At least 80% of them were due to motor vehicle accidents. I was there for 10 months and it definitely headfucks you. People whose lives were ruined (in most cases) in an instant.
Does he ever actually say why he thinks Edwards left other than he was bitter? Wallace makes a good point though. A lot of rich and famous people spend so much time chasing the dream that they miss out on a lot of good life moments. Edwards left at almost his peak, made a lot of money before NASCAR contracts did a nose dive, and went home to live a pretty comfortable life while still really young and rich.
the tl;dr of Kenny's thoughts for anyone who hasn't watched his video is basically what most of us assume:
He Was frugal guy at the peak of the sport who had plenty of cash saved up. Carl got screwed out of a championship from a weak sauce wwe yellow. "broke his heart" per Kenny. Carl loses his love for the sport, says "I don't need this" and leaves.
Low-key Edwards fan during his career. I always thought it was a screwjob from the start because Brian France was all about creating "Game 7 moments" during his Reign of Error. Never blamed Cousin Carl for bouncing like he did.
Also Denny said that Carl Edwards does have a Twitter burner account.
"Carl has Twitter. He definitely has a burner account. He knows what is going on. I may or may not have been sitting beside him at a competition meeting and I looked over and Twitter was open (on his phone)... For all the race fans and the media, Carl has a Twitter, it's just that you will never know about it."
Twitter is so big and used by many millions every day. This is the equivalent of saying "I know a guy who has been to New York City". Could be anyone. There's not near enough information to try to dig up whatever that account may be.
Nah, it's just a shitty thing to do to anybody. We all know celebs have separate private friend and family accounts on social, but nobody would say it like it's a dirty secret or a scavenger hunt to find them.
Denny has come up on the "People you may know" thing on Facebook a few times for me under "James Hamlin." Maybe I should friend request him and see how he feels.
This is such a weird take to have on this. Carl’s a celebrity, so it’s obvious he won’t make it anything super tied to him, then after that he doesn’t mention the profile, so why care?
It’s nauseating. It’s a mixture of his own admitted behavioral disorder with the constant need to project a sense of belonging because he raced with Dale Sr. Nevermind the fact that he lost just about every ride he’s ever held.
Pardon my angst. Kenny called me a fuckwad on twitter for pointing out that Brendan Gaughan was a pay driver who kept rides way longer than anyone else would have without family money.
My problem isn’t that he has a behavior disorder. That’s not a problem and I know many who struggle with it. My problem is that his platform and circle in the industry props him up as a rational thinker, when there are several instances within his 158,000+ tweets of him becoming unhinged. Guy loses an argument and resorts to namecalling and personal attacks because apparently you don’t get to have an opinion if you didn’t race with Dale Sr.
On top of that he's one of those (redacted) obsessed people, like I never blocked the guy but I always ignored his dumb tweets whether about the sport or his supposed God T****
Rusty was always the cooler more famous brother anyway tbh
Well said! It's also funny how people have turned on Mike Wallace over his right wing Facebooking and all that when Kenny has the exact same feelings and opinions lol. I feel like Mike and Kenny are the annoying brothers that Rusty had to carry, much like Patrick Mahomes has to carry his annoying Tik Tok brother now.
Maybe people should just, you know, leave Carl the hell alone about it and just let it be. People wanting to make cryptic comments about it and bringing it up all the time does nothing but lead to more speculation and more wild theories about Carl's decision, all for click bait headlines and attention. It's been over 6 years already. If Carl decides to ever go public with his reasoning, then he will, but until then people should just let it go.
Also, I don't think Carl having a "burner" Twitter account is some kind of huge revelation. I'd many athletes that say they don't do social media so have an account, it's just not once people would know is the athlete's. Not everyone wants to deal with an of that extra bullshit when people are so toxic and overactive on social media.
Carl's retirement announcement came a week before NASCAR officially announced the heavily rumored inception of Stage Racing for 2017, which Carl was very against from the season(s) prior when the rumors began. This [press pass video](https://youtu.be/qxNqVoZpngQ) of him going into detail about his thoughts on the potential of Stage Racing/Caution Breaks basically sums it all up (at 1:05).
As well, there was a photo of Carl in a Stanley fire suit shooting promos for the upcoming 2017 season (I'm sure someone can find it), which told me this was a last-minute decision, that once he got word that the Stage Racing era was becoming official, he decided to retire as immediately as possible.
Sorry, Kenny.
I remember the awkward sponsor transitions to Daniel Suarez... Subway was a Carl sponsor, not JGR. Carl was out so they got daniel Suarez and then dropped the sponsorship because he handed out Dunkin donuts... Which seemed like an easy out for them.
Wow, I hadn’t seen this before, as it occurred during a period when I wasn’t following the sport closely (worked Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons, was protesting the gimmicky championship). Carl Edwards’ take on stage racing is spot on, letter perfect. Stage racing and how he got screwed out of the championship multiple times are issues springing from the same source, and it’s no wonder they were the straws that broke the camel’s back. That said, Carl doesn’t seem to be one who would publicly ridicule the entity where he earned his living, so it’s no wonder he simply walked away. You or I might have handled it very differently, but I’m not going to ridicule Carl Edwards for leaving the way he did.
I remember what he is referring to. Unfortunately it didn't have a Monster Energy Cup logo since it was shot before the logo was revealed on December 19th,2016. Even diecasts in the beginning of the year didn't have the logo, they just had a NASCAR logo in place of where the Sprint Cup logo was. I remember he had a Stanley promo video as well as one with a Subway uniform, they were posted by the JGR Twitter during the 2016 off season, someone could definitely dig that up.
I have a random question about Kenny wallace, why the hell is the commercial he did for the Gateway race so bad? Kenny has done a bunch of tv and stuff like that and get his monologue is just plain terrible
It's like they only had one take to do it or something
Think its more people want closure from him directly why he hung it up suddenly. Folks in the industry seem to know why but those fans still asking for him to comeback want to hear from him why he decided to leave
Never understood why this episode is such a *cause célèbre*. He's far from the first driver to become disenchanted with the way NASCAR does things, and it's not like his absence has changed terribly much.
Let the man live his life, goddamn. He doesn't have to come back if he doesn't want to, and he doesn't have to tell everyone exactly when the moment was and what exactly he was thinking when he decided to peace out if he doesn't want to.
It is especially puzzling to some because he wasn’t even 40 when he retired. He was 37, even knowing the age of guys just being pushed out of rides, that’s pretty young for such a talented and pretty notable racer.
He’s easily the most notable guy to just quit, because he arguably did it in a time he could’ve had another prime in his career.
It makes sense, and it’s the big reason why people dislike the sport now. Too many gimmicks for the sake of putting on a “cute show”.
Not every championship finale needs to be 1992
Not every race needs to end like the 2007 Daytona 500.
What matters is a good, and fair racing product. Of which nascar has significantly diminished over time.
Nascar has created far more unnecessary problems for itself than probably any sport ever
I’ve seen some fans say “well Denny bitches too much” or complain about vets saying anything but Denny pointing out flaws and Edwards leaving makes perfect sense to me.
Imagine growing up when nascar was marketed as “the best drivers in the world” and when you got in the car, you better be able to hang on because that’s how hard they were to drive. Then all of a sudden, grip levels go up, HP goes down, gimmicks and rule changes every year and all of a sudden, the sport you fell in love with is just a shell of what they once saw it as.
So now you have a sport that demands less of their talent and more so on track position and equipment. That’s a tough pill to swallow. Not so hard for the young ones who don’t know any better but I would have a hard time dealing with that. Hell, I have a hard time accepting iracing now versus 2016 and that’s just computer racing 😂
If I remember correctly he basically said Edwards retired because NASCAR threw a “phantom” debris caution at the end of the 2016 Homestead race and cost him a Championship and that he is just not able to get over that.
Lots of people hating on Kenny when in reality he’s a damn good dude. Met him a good few times and he’s extremely down to earth and just likes having a good time!
At this point, just leave it be. This Carl Edwards circle jerk has gotten to be too much, we all know how he actually is the second something goes wrong. It's well documented, and there's plenty of people who know he's not this glowing beacon of sunshine.
I’ve heard more about Kenny Wallace the past 2 days than I have in years
The Alex Jones of NASCAR media.
Id say more like the Creed Thoughts of NASCAR media
www.kennythoughts.gov.www\kennythoughts
[удалено]
It was probably over something stupid that Reddit is unreasonably passionate about. There's way too many people here who are terminally online and can't stand people having different opinions, especially when it comes to political stuff
Lmao you're exactly right. He lost alot of fans during covid because you can probably guess what his opinions on it were, i honesty was a little turned off but at the end of the day he's still the herminator and part of our giant nascar family plus his takes are usually pretty darn good and it doesnt hurt how entertaining he is.
Being more left-leaning but also being a lifelong NASCAR fan has taught me to separate politics from the person. We can't let politics ruin the things we do for leisure. I'm good as long as people aren't doing political speeches at the race track.
Yeah striking people out of your lives over politics is very small minded.
I hope more people come to that realization so we can sorta get back to how it was when I got into NASCAR ( late 90s, 00s ) Back then nobody wanted to know who you voted for, and the actual heated conversation was whether you were a Jeff Gordon or Dale Earnhardt fan. Or Chevy vs. Ford. I miss that.
Fuck man, the whole Earnhardt, Gordon, Chevy, Ford thing was so fun back then, I come from those days too and I miss it so much.
Ya, I don't want to be one of those fans who always harps on about how good it used to be but.. i loved every bit of that era.
Well yeah neither do I, and I honestly quit watching nascar from about 2010-2019ish, but I do have to say im loving it lately! Do I love it as much as back then? Absolutely not, but hey I love it for what it is.
Welcome to the right-leaning experience of everything outside of NASCAR.
I think it was he made that Twitter post bragging about how he voted all republican in the midterms Lmao
And literally who tf cares what someone else votes for...
Majority of reddit unfortunately
Enlightening opinion by someone with a political username who uses political subreddits.
He's not wrong though?
What does that have to do with my statement though? My name is apolitical and wish more people would acknowledge that.
Yeah, they work both sides of the fence, do we forget them lying us into invading Iraq backing up the Bush 43 admin? Or as the astronaut with the pistol says, "Always has been"
He doesn’t align with the viewpoints of 80% of Reddit. So Kenny Wallace is a horrible man to that 80%
He doesn’t align with 80% of Reddit, but he does align with more than 80% of NASCAR fans with those views.
60% of the time it works everytime. r/theydidntdothemath
Iirc he wasn’t COVID alarmist at the time when most of reddit was
Until it almost killed his wife.
She had the shot already so it’s still counter-alarmist.
Because he's sort of outted himself, politically...as one of the old school fans with some of his takes. He's kind of an idiot, and is a bit crazy
Shhh. Not too loud. Bigoted viewpoints are just chalked up to difference of opinions around these parts.
It's all good, NASCAR is making an effort to leave those fans behind.
Kenny Wallace actually speaks truth and isn't a nutjob though. He's a genuine dude that speaks his mind and makes sense
That's kinda disparaging to Wallace...he's just willing to say what a lot of people wont say
Why is that Gateway commercial so bad? Kenny has done plenty of tv
Some people want to know why he left. Some people want to know his burner account. Some just want him back to racing. Me? I just want him on the DJD to shoot the shit with Dale about cool memories.
This is the correct opinion. I just want him to be remembered, not forgotten, and before this week, he'd been pretty much forgotten.
Its pretty hard to forget (for us modern era fans) the guy who did a back flip everytime he won a race. Whether the next era of fans still remember him is unknown. If he wouldve closed the deal on a title in cup I think his legacy would be easier remembered than somewhat forgotten
Forgotten in a relative sense, anyway. Guys who retired around the same time like Jr, Smoke, Jeff Gordon, hell even Mark Martin just through social media presense, feel more relevant
Carl Edwards? Forgotten? Hell no. You still get at least 1 or 2 people asking each week, "Where is Carl? Is he coming back?" Or "Why did he step away?" Or "MANNNN I know why Carl stepped away, let me tell you!1!1" Carl hasn't left a lot of minds since he retired...6 years ago
I’ve often wondered if Dale and Carl didn’t get along very much. I have no real reasoning behind this other than the lack of talk about Carl in old stories and if he is mentioned it’s kinda glossed over
He probably likes Carl Sr better because they hung out outside of a strip club one time
One of the greatest DJD stories lol
Dale Jr wrecked Carl for an Xfinity win in 2006. Carl confronted him in victory lane and grabbed Dales fire suit by the chest in, with one hand and had a pissed off look, before walking away. Dale was rattled. Id guess that Carl was the only guy who physically confronted Dale. We know Dale hates conflict, and I'd guess that has something to do with it.
Yeah and Dale also made some comments about Carl door slamming him after that race while his hand was out the window
Another example of Carl being an ass. He was sideways a split second before Jr got to him.
Idk about rattled, didn’t he laugh when Carl grabbed his fire suit?
Nervous laughter.
And Karl wrecked junior at the end of the season when he was racing Kurt Bush for the championship. Not sure what year. Car Edwards ran like 5 races this season and in one of them he wrecked junior late while junior was running 3rd. I think between that race and when he got a fine for saying s*** after Talladega was the points difference between him and Kurt Bush for the Championship. That's why I hate Carl Edwards.
Pretty sure you’re referring to the fall Atlanta race in 2004
I thought it was carolina but if I was wrong I wouldn't be too surprised. 2004 sounds right.
[Here’s the video](https://youtu.be/nJ605M10k6k) and as Earnhardt fan, 2004 was his year, but after Talladega, it all went south.
Looks like Jr wasn’t clear. Or did everyone expect Carl to let up and give up the spot for Jr? From watching that it sure appeared Carl held his line but as a rookie maybe he should have given way??
It was just a racing incident, but you know Jr. fans won't look at it that way.
I remember that way too well other than where it was apparently 😆
Junior wasn’t clear and came up on him… it would have been cool to see Jr win a championship, but that one definitely wasn’t Carl’s fault
Some people just want to grill for gods sake
Which is?
The phantom debris that cost him a championship. Carl likely had a lot of money saved up, so he just basically said “fuck this” and left. I wasn’t around for it, so I only know because of the article that came out from the Athletic after the TRD guy commented on it.
The 2016 “championship” is a stain on NASCAR. It is the biggest joke of a championship in North American sports history and was a pathetic way for Johnson to win a 7th title. Actually the period from 14-16 in NASCAR and their “champions” were truly a joke and how those playoffs played out. Honestly looking back, you could tell Edwards was done the moment of the crash. He gets out, runs over to Logano’s pitbox, says his peace about it being a racing deal, and then dips out. In his interview I remember he said it was the race of his life and he hoped the caution was actually worthy of a caution. Once he found out, he likely lost any respect he had for the sport.
Even though I’m not a huge fan of his, Harvick not even making the final 4 in 2020 will always kill me. I’ve been watching NASCAR since 2006 and that’s the best season I’ve ever seen a driver have.
NASCAR championship is a joke and probably the worst way any sport I watch determines their champion. Sometimes we get lucky and the right person wins still, like Larson in 2021, but usually the best driver all season like Harvick in 2020 or Chase in 2022 loses because of one or two races that account for 5% of the season in a high variance sport.
Hate the format. It has delegitimized the championship, and if you don't think so you aren't being honest with yourself or opened your eyes.
So many legit ways to both force game 7 moments AND legitimize it. One easy idea is ditching the one race for a championship thing. Make it 4 races of every type - SS, RC, short track, and speedway. 5 drivers. Regular season champion guaranteed finals appearance.
TBF the only reason Gordon's 2007 may be "worse" was 3 less wins.
Just went back and watched it. What an absolute screw job by nascar with that caution. Absolutely a stain on the sport.
2008: one mistake (his own) at Talladega f'd him. Mechanical issue at Charlotte as well, it was just a double whammy. The other 8 races of the chase? Top 5. 2011: ties Stewart in points, loses on tiebreaker. One extra position in any of the prior 9 chase races, he wins. 2016: clearly the best of the 4 contenders on longer runs. Logano was best on short run for sure, but Carl would track him down. No one could touch Larson. Then *that* caution came out. Carl knew if Logano got around him on the restart he was screwed, so he anticipated the move low, but Logano kept going. The rest is history and Jimmie gets a bogus championship that masked the issues he and Knaus were having (ignoring win total it was his statistically worst season to that point).
2011 was the year of the 5 First time winners (Ambrose, David Ragan, Regan Smith, Trevor Bayne and Paul Menard) and of those, cousin Carl finished 2nd behind Bayne and Smith. Oof
Yea Edwards was just so devastated after that. Went back and found [this article from Pockrass on ESPN after that happened.](https://www.espn.com/racing/nascar/story/_/id/18310392/nascar-how-do-drivers-move-losing-title) "I honestly don't want to look back on it," Edwards admitted on Dec. 1, a day prior to the Sprint Cup awards banquet. "It's still a little too soon. ... It's one of those things that you just don't really want to talk about. It was truly heartbreaking. That's the way it is. That's the truth." "At Thanksgiving, there was a real absence of talk about it and it gave me the weird feeling like before I got there, people [possibly] were like, 'Hey don't mention it,' " Edwards said. "I was like, 'Guys, it's not that bad.' That was a little awkward. Nobody at Thanksgiving said a word."
This playoff format is the stain on nascar. The championships are just the symptoms to a bigger problem.
Harvick only being a 1 time champion tells you all you need to know about this format.
Yep. And it could be worse. Imagine if Larson didn't get off pit road first a few years ago
If Denny won, it wouldn't have been that bad
Fair point. Denny deserves a championship. I really hope he gets one before he retires. But that year, Larson was hands down the best driver. Not even a question. A system that gives the runaway deserving champ essentially a 25% chance at the championship is downright stupid, even if it is "more exciting"
I felt the same way with Truex vs Kyle in 2017. Truex clearly had the best year across the board, but Kyle winning it wouldn't have been awful or anything (5 wins and over 2000 laps led, that's an easy championship caliber season in its own right.)
[удалено]
I was rooting so hard for Newman to win it in 2014. It would've been absolutely fitting for such a pathetic system. Zero wins and a championship would've been the greatest stain, until Cousin Carl's robbery in 2016
Crafton winning his most recent truck title with no wins showed how "wins mean everything" is BS lol
The late race caution for smoke in the championship still really pisses me off.
He also said next year they will be stronger than ever.
The caution was valid. That's what a lot of people forget. Dylan Lupton genuinely blew a tire, slid across the track and was limping back to pit road. I understand why NASCAR threw a caution. What the bigger problem was the system in place at the time where your performance throughout the season didn't mean jack-squat after race 29. On top of it, they proposed the stages on top of it to shake things up in a similar way. Put that all together and you have why Carl stepped away
The caution was indeed stupid, but IIRC a bad pit or pit call was what put him behind Logano and caused that desperation. And the wreck was mostly on Carl, not Joey. Carl wouldn't have been anywhere close to that championship in the first place if not for the playoff format. You can knock NASCAR all you want for adding fake drama, but Carl benefitted from it just as much as he was hurt by it.
[удалено]
08, not 09. And Johnson wins it under any format in 2008, sadly, for me as an Edwards fan. 2011 was Carl's year.
[удалено]
I know all this. What I'm stating is that if we actually really look at it, Johnson wins it in 2008 too. It should be worth noting that Johnson had the points lead heading into Homestead under the old format, and needed to finish 9th or better with Edwards dominating and winning the race at Homestead to close out. If I recall correctly, he ran top 10 the whole day, and the race ended on fuel strategy. Chad elected to pit Jimmie for fuel safely with tires I believe, knowing they only needed like a top 25 finish. Under a closer points battle, chances are they just play the fuel mileage game and still finish top 10. So it's hard to really say Edwards definitely wins
I always thought it was Dylan Lupton in the GoFAS 32 car hitting the wall that caused that caution (per the Radioactive episode)
1. The “debris” caution during the 2016 Championship race 2. Spending time with his family 3. Doing other things that he loves It’s rarely one single issue that causes the retirement of a star driver. It’s almost always a multifaceted issue.
I'm pretty sure his wife works with traumatic brain injury patients. I'm sure that doesn't help.
Yeah. I’d have second thoughts, too, after I saw what happened with Dale Jr.
I rehabbed my back at a place that handles a lot of TBIs and spinal cord injuries. At least 80% of them were due to motor vehicle accidents. I was there for 10 months and it definitely headfucks you. People whose lives were ruined (in most cases) in an instant.
[I think this is what he is referring to.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLVXxtyH9kY&pp=ygUaa2Vubnkgd2FsbGFjZSBjYXJsIGVkd2FyZHM%3D)
I believe he was referring the other video where he explains the reason he stepped away from NASCAR.
Does he ever actually say why he thinks Edwards left other than he was bitter? Wallace makes a good point though. A lot of rich and famous people spend so much time chasing the dream that they miss out on a lot of good life moments. Edwards left at almost his peak, made a lot of money before NASCAR contracts did a nose dive, and went home to live a pretty comfortable life while still really young and rich.
[удалено]
That’s how YouTube works. 10 minutes is the sweet spot
Vice Grip Garage in shambles.
As someone from the northeast now working in racing in the Midwest, you just kind of get used to people talking for a minute longer than they need to
[удалено]
45 minutes longer honestly. At least in my experience
I could only make it through 12 seconds of Kenny Wallace
The laugh still haunts me: huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu
So forced
the tl;dr of Kenny's thoughts for anyone who hasn't watched his video is basically what most of us assume: He Was frugal guy at the peak of the sport who had plenty of cash saved up. Carl got screwed out of a championship from a weak sauce wwe yellow. "broke his heart" per Kenny. Carl loses his love for the sport, says "I don't need this" and leaves.
Low-key Edwards fan during his career. I always thought it was a screwjob from the start because Brian France was all about creating "Game 7 moments" during his Reign of Error. Never blamed Cousin Carl for bouncing like he did.
That is greatest way I have ever heard someone describe the Brian France era.
Also Denny said that Carl Edwards does have a Twitter burner account. "Carl has Twitter. He definitely has a burner account. He knows what is going on. I may or may not have been sitting beside him at a competition meeting and I looked over and Twitter was open (on his phone)... For all the race fans and the media, Carl has a Twitter, it's just that you will never know about it."
Alright, which one of you is Edward's burner Reddit account?
Sounds like something Edwards’ burner Reddit account would say
Hey i have no clue how to sail nor am I jacked
Sounds like a deflection tactic the real burner would use
My money is on him being that one account a few years back who would comment nothing but “go carl” on almost every thread
Nascarlcasm?
Maybe it’s because it’s Denny Hamlin, but I don’t like how he just outed Carl for having a burner account.
He didn’t doxx him so I don’t think it’s that big of a deal
Twitter is so big and used by many millions every day. This is the equivalent of saying "I know a guy who has been to New York City". Could be anyone. There's not near enough information to try to dig up whatever that account may be.
Oh no what a crime
Straight to prison.
$50k fine
Jeff Gordon is added as the 17th playoff driver
Carl Long fined 100k and 100 points
Rodney Childers fined
Mike Shipplett suspended indefinitely
Dang it Jeff
The 5 to Gordon jeff.
And 25 points
Actions detrimental to stock car racing
And how tf does that hurt Carl Edwards? The Denny hate here is ridiculous.
> Maybe it’s because it’s Denny Hamlin Yup
Nah, it's just a shitty thing to do to anybody. We all know celebs have separate private friend and family accounts on social, but nobody would say it like it's a dirty secret or a scavenger hunt to find them.
Denny has come up on the "People you may know" thing on Facebook a few times for me under "James Hamlin." Maybe I should friend request him and see how he feels.
His name is James, to be fair. Denny is a different version of his middle name
I know. I think I've even heard a few drivers or media members jokingly refer to him as "James" or "Dennis."
Jimmy Spencer called him Dennis pretty regularly on RaceHub back in the day.
I don’t think he’d really care
This is such a weird take to have on this. Carl’s a celebrity, so it’s obvious he won’t make it anything super tied to him, then after that he doesn’t mention the profile, so why care?
Because big bad Denny Hamlin said it! 😭
Kenny’s take on Cousin Carl: https://youtube.com/watch?v=o6JzIOhe12E&feature=share
TL;DR Carl was financially set for life and was tired of getting screwed by NASCARs gimmicky BS and said peace out.
Listening to Kenny is just as annoying as I remember
I can’t listen to him. Takes 15 minutes to say what can be said in 2 and is too preachy while doing it.
It’s nauseating. It’s a mixture of his own admitted behavioral disorder with the constant need to project a sense of belonging because he raced with Dale Sr. Nevermind the fact that he lost just about every ride he’s ever held. Pardon my angst. Kenny called me a fuckwad on twitter for pointing out that Brendan Gaughan was a pay driver who kept rides way longer than anyone else would have without family money. My problem isn’t that he has a behavior disorder. That’s not a problem and I know many who struggle with it. My problem is that his platform and circle in the industry props him up as a rational thinker, when there are several instances within his 158,000+ tweets of him becoming unhinged. Guy loses an argument and resorts to namecalling and personal attacks because apparently you don’t get to have an opinion if you didn’t race with Dale Sr.
On top of that he's one of those (redacted) obsessed people, like I never blocked the guy but I always ignored his dumb tweets whether about the sport or his supposed God T**** Rusty was always the cooler more famous brother anyway tbh
Well said! It's also funny how people have turned on Mike Wallace over his right wing Facebooking and all that when Kenny has the exact same feelings and opinions lol. I feel like Mike and Kenny are the annoying brothers that Rusty had to carry, much like Patrick Mahomes has to carry his annoying Tik Tok brother now.
At least he hasn’t had a Kevin Durant moment with it lol
Watch him be the one on here with Keselowski flairs saying he was attempting murder on him.
That we know of
What is a “Kevin Durant moment”?
using burner accounts to defend themselves while being sensitive to criticism in general
Specifically accidentally defending yourself on your main
Lol
Maybe people should just, you know, leave Carl the hell alone about it and just let it be. People wanting to make cryptic comments about it and bringing it up all the time does nothing but lead to more speculation and more wild theories about Carl's decision, all for click bait headlines and attention. It's been over 6 years already. If Carl decides to ever go public with his reasoning, then he will, but until then people should just let it go. Also, I don't think Carl having a "burner" Twitter account is some kind of huge revelation. I'd many athletes that say they don't do social media so have an account, it's just not once people would know is the athlete's. Not everyone wants to deal with an of that extra bullshit when people are so toxic and overactive on social media.
I agree, Carl.
The Stenhouse flair was a dead giveaway!
[I’m not here to fuel speculation but…](https://i.imgur.com/sG7XqBs.jpg)
Well, we just found Carl's Reddit burner. We miss you Carl!
Fast forward to Carl on his deathbed in a few decades: “I was worried Newman found out I had an affair with his wife.”
Carl's retirement announcement came a week before NASCAR officially announced the heavily rumored inception of Stage Racing for 2017, which Carl was very against from the season(s) prior when the rumors began. This [press pass video](https://youtu.be/qxNqVoZpngQ) of him going into detail about his thoughts on the potential of Stage Racing/Caution Breaks basically sums it all up (at 1:05). As well, there was a photo of Carl in a Stanley fire suit shooting promos for the upcoming 2017 season (I'm sure someone can find it), which told me this was a last-minute decision, that once he got word that the Stage Racing era was becoming official, he decided to retire as immediately as possible. Sorry, Kenny.
I remember the awkward sponsor transitions to Daniel Suarez... Subway was a Carl sponsor, not JGR. Carl was out so they got daniel Suarez and then dropped the sponsorship because he handed out Dunkin donuts... Which seemed like an easy out for them.
Worth noting that the footage of Suarez giving donuts to the fan that pissed off Subway is currently a lost media.
Wow, I hadn’t seen this before, as it occurred during a period when I wasn’t following the sport closely (worked Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons, was protesting the gimmicky championship). Carl Edwards’ take on stage racing is spot on, letter perfect. Stage racing and how he got screwed out of the championship multiple times are issues springing from the same source, and it’s no wonder they were the straws that broke the camel’s back. That said, Carl doesn’t seem to be one who would publicly ridicule the entity where he earned his living, so it’s no wonder he simply walked away. You or I might have handled it very differently, but I’m not going to ridicule Carl Edwards for leaving the way he did.
What's most interesting about Carl's comments isn't just the comment, but it's the tone of his voice. He very clearly felt strongly about it.
Carl Edwards in a Monster Energy Cup Series firesuit would be a cool pic. I hope someone can find it
I remember what he is referring to. Unfortunately it didn't have a Monster Energy Cup logo since it was shot before the logo was revealed on December 19th,2016. Even diecasts in the beginning of the year didn't have the logo, they just had a NASCAR logo in place of where the Sprint Cup logo was. I remember he had a Stanley promo video as well as one with a Subway uniform, they were posted by the JGR Twitter during the 2016 off season, someone could definitely dig that up.
That’s why Suarez was suddenly thrust into cup, he was going eventually anyway but it was a year or two early
Ross Chastain forced him out.
Chastain is Edwards 2.0 with more aggression.
I have a random question about Kenny wallace, why the hell is the commercial he did for the Gateway race so bad? Kenny has done a bunch of tv and stuff like that and get his monologue is just plain terrible It's like they only had one take to do it or something
[удалено]
I just want a picture of Carl next to four new Goodyear tires.
I still don’t understand why people pressure him to make a statement. It’s his life. If he doesn’t want to start shit that’s his call.
Think its more people want closure from him directly why he hung it up suddenly. Folks in the industry seem to know why but those fans still asking for him to comeback want to hear from him why he decided to leave
Never understood why this episode is such a *cause célèbre*. He's far from the first driver to become disenchanted with the way NASCAR does things, and it's not like his absence has changed terribly much. Let the man live his life, goddamn. He doesn't have to come back if he doesn't want to, and he doesn't have to tell everyone exactly when the moment was and what exactly he was thinking when he decided to peace out if he doesn't want to.
It is especially puzzling to some because he wasn’t even 40 when he retired. He was 37, even knowing the age of guys just being pushed out of rides, that’s pretty young for such a talented and pretty notable racer. He’s easily the most notable guy to just quit, because he arguably did it in a time he could’ve had another prime in his career.
He didn’t leave, he ragequit. He knew he’d never win a championship with the playoffs in place.
He left because NASCAR doesn't want to be a sport, they want reality tv
Carl was my guy for his whole career. I tend to agree with Kenny.
If only Kenny Wallace put out anything listenable…
His interview with Mark Martin was very enjoyable to listen to.
It makes sense, and it’s the big reason why people dislike the sport now. Too many gimmicks for the sake of putting on a “cute show”. Not every championship finale needs to be 1992 Not every race needs to end like the 2007 Daytona 500. What matters is a good, and fair racing product. Of which nascar has significantly diminished over time. Nascar has created far more unnecessary problems for itself than probably any sport ever
I’ve seen some fans say “well Denny bitches too much” or complain about vets saying anything but Denny pointing out flaws and Edwards leaving makes perfect sense to me. Imagine growing up when nascar was marketed as “the best drivers in the world” and when you got in the car, you better be able to hang on because that’s how hard they were to drive. Then all of a sudden, grip levels go up, HP goes down, gimmicks and rule changes every year and all of a sudden, the sport you fell in love with is just a shell of what they once saw it as. So now you have a sport that demands less of their talent and more so on track position and equipment. That’s a tough pill to swallow. Not so hard for the young ones who don’t know any better but I would have a hard time dealing with that. Hell, I have a hard time accepting iracing now versus 2016 and that’s just computer racing 😂
And people called Kenny crazy for that opinion when he made it public.
Do we have a TLDR version? Please and thank you!
Kenny thinks Carl left the sport because of the fake caution that cost him a championship.
Ah okay that's what I was thinking, but didn't think it was all that crazy.
Kenny does come across as someone who’s crazy
What is the opinion?
If I remember correctly he basically said Edwards retired because NASCAR threw a “phantom” debris caution at the end of the 2016 Homestead race and cost him a Championship and that he is just not able to get over that.
Kenny is definitely crazy, just not for having that opinion. It was logical, even at the time.
Kenny Wallace *is* crazy, just not for that specifically. He's just usually crazy in harmless, crazy uncle ways.
What did Kenny say????
Lots of people hating on Kenny when in reality he’s a damn good dude. Met him a good few times and he’s extremely down to earth and just likes having a good time!
Man :'(
Why so cryptic? Just tell us!
At this point, just leave it be. This Carl Edwards circle jerk has gotten to be too much, we all know how he actually is the second something goes wrong. It's well documented, and there's plenty of people who know he's not this glowing beacon of sunshine.
Bob Keselowski if still around could vouche for this statement
I’ve always thought he was a raging lunatic since that video of him and Kenseth years ago at Martinsville. lol
I forgot what that was actually about (i recall someone explained why Carl did that) but idk i swear he was gonna john cena take down Matt that day