Friday at Pocono Raceway, lame-duck Roush Fenway Racing driver Carl Edwards didn’t shed any definitive new light about whether he’d be back with the team for an 11th season in 2015 or, as is rumored, he’ll move to Team Penske or Joe Gibbs Racing. But he sure seemed to drop a strong hint.
“I am really proud to represent Ford,” Edwards said during his Pocono media availability. “I don’t think anybody makes better cars than Ford does. I think they really care about their products and they definitely care about racing. It is part of their DNA. That is what we talk about. The company is based on auto racing. As far as their contribution to NASCAR, it is immense and right now yielding great results from the Penske side. I think as a group we have to step up our performance at Roush Fenway to be representative of Ford’s contribution. I am really proud to drive for Ford and I think they do a great job.” The veteran added that his current outfit is working hard at finding speed.
“I guess we understand where we are at,” said Edwards, who enters Sunday’s Pocono 400 third in points. “We know we have to be faster and there are big changes trying to address that. Robbie (Reiser, team general manager), Bob Osborne (crew chief), Jack (Roush, team co-owner), everyone is working as hard as we can and we just have to hope that we work on the right things and are able to implement the findings and be better. We have everything there, we just need this much more speed and we would be really good.”
Edwards is the only one of the three Roush Fenway drivers having what can be classified as an excellent season so far. In addition to being third in points, he owns the team’s only race victory of 2014, while teammates Greg Biffle and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. are 16th and 26th, respectively, in points.
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“Our cars, we have basically had the same struggle all year and are working on addressing that and fortunately have time to fix it before the Chase, hopefully,” said Edwards, who qualified 10th for the Pocono 400. “There hasn’t been a lot of shift in the field but at the end of the day, now is the time when you have to think about if we are going the right direction or wrong direction, performance wise. That is what everyone has on their minds. How do you be the best you can so that you peak at Homestead? That is what you have to do.”
