Times wires
Saturday, April 9, 2011
FORT WORTH, Texas — When Carl Edwards isn't driving on the track, he can often be found flying one of his planes.
In the days before late Saturday's Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway, he told a story of a previous visit there in which he earned quite a nickname.
In the small Texas town of Dimmit, Edwards was landing his single-engine plane for fuel not long after getting his pilot's license.
"I landed downwind. I am landing at 60-80 mph plus 20 mph wind, and I am screaming down this runway trying to stop," he said last week. "I get to the end, and there is a guy ready to take off the correct direction. I can see him look at me like, 'You idiot.' … He is looking at me like, 'Now what are you going to do, moron? You have to turn around because I can't back up.' So I turn around and taxi back."
The other plane took off, and Edwards went to get fuel when he was recognized by someone who said, "You are NASCAR driver Carl Edwards!" But they hadn't seen his landing, so Edwards figured he was in the clear.
About a year later, Edwards was doing an autograph session at TMS when he heard somebody yell from the crowd, "Hey, downwind!"
It was the pilot who was in the crop duster at the end of the runway when Edwards landed.
"You are a terrible pilot," Edwards said, relaying what the other pilot said. "I am sure in the crop duster community around here they laugh at me as a pilot."
LATE FRIDAY: Edwards narrowly escaped a wreck early and went on to lead 169 of 200 laps to win his second consecutive NASCAR Nationwide series race at Texas.
It was his 30th Nationwide victory, the 15th NASCAR victory for car owner Jack Roush at Texas and the first NASCAR win for a Ford Mustang.
Edwards narrowly escaped a wreck early, but rival Kyle Busch was not as lucky.
Edwards and Busch were running 1-2 on Lap 88 in the O'Reilly Auto Parts 300 when Tim Schendel's car blew a right front tire and shot up the track. He barely scraped the back of Edwards' car but was right in front of Busch, who had nowhere to go, and hit him full force.
"Just sheer luck of timing, the car ended up missing us and caught him instead," Edwards said. "Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw that car turn."
Edwards, the pole-sitter, won by 0.482 seconds over fellow Sprint Cup driver Brad Keselowski.
GRAND-AM: Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas easily won the Porsche 250 in Birmingham, Ala., to extend their series winning streak to a record six races.
INDYCAR: Will Power is on the pole for today's Grand Prix of Alabama in Birmingham with a lap of 1 minute, 11.46 seconds. He sat on the pole last year at Barber Motorsports Park and last month in St. Petersburg, where he finished second. Power's Penske Racing teammate, Ryan Briscoe, starts second.
FORMULA ONE: Defending world champion Sebastian Vettel earned the pole for the Malaysian Grand Prix in Kuala Lumpur with a lap of 1:34.870, edging Lewis Hamilton of McLaren by a 10th of a second. The race was held overnight.