In the competitive sports arena, there are many variations on the statement that no one really remembers who finished second. While this is not necessarily true – fans of the guy or the team that actually did finish second in a close contest will undoubtedly remember it for the rest of their lives – it is probably accurate to say that the name of the fifth-place finisher will be immortalized on nothing more than a lone page in a record book.
Why, then, are we still talking about Carl Edwards?
At Kansas Speedway on October 7-9, Edwards certainly made a good showing, qualifying second, finishing fifth and taking sole possession of the points lead. But the ever-insidious Jimmie Johnson won the race, his first victory in the 2011 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and only his second win of the season. He climbed to third in the driver standings, leading many to predict that the Johnsons were headed home to dust off a spot on the mantel for that sixth championship trophy.
Edwards did it again in the NASCAR Nationwide Series at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Friday, October 14, with a dramatic rally from early hard contact with the wall to win the race. He followed that up with a third-place finish in last Saturday night’s Bank of America 500, Race 5 in the Chase, holding on to the points lead by five points over Kevin Harvick.
Sometimes, what you do isn’t as memorable as how you do it.
Despite winning only one points-paying race headed into the October 21-23 race weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, Edwards has performed consistently well all season and was seeded fifth when the Chase began.
Any kid who has ever climbed a tree can tell you that a few branches are going to break on your way to the top, and Edwards is proof positive of the veracity of that statement. He is the only championship contender to finish in the top 10 in all five of the Chase races headed into Talladega, but it hasn’t been a cake walk.
Midway through Race 3, at Dover International Raceway, Edwards incurred a penalty for speeding on pit road, and then fought his way back to finish third. An impressive performance, but probably not one you would be anxious to reprise. Nevertheless, the following week, at Kansas, they had to do just that. Another bough broke, but the cradle kept on rocking. Down two laps, Edwards and his team managed to fight their way all the way back to a fifth-place finish.
“I feel grateful,” he said after the race. “I cannot believe we finished fifth. It feels like a win. That’s the best we’ve done with the worst; the most we’ve done with a car that wasn’t capable of winning ever … To finish like that is spectacular. It was an unbelievable comeback. That was a championship effort for us.”
So, if Johnson is called “Five-time” and Kevin Harvick is known as “The Closer,” could Edwards, who has shown week after week that he has the ability to go out and make things happen when the chips are down, be gaining a reputation as the “Comeback Kid?”
That may depend on how far back he has to come. In Edwards’ opinion, that particular road only has one acceptable end: Victory Lane. “I think you can win the championship without winning a race, but I don’t think it will happen,” he said. “There is still so much racing left; a lot can happen … You know, I have a feeling there will be more moments that define this championship.”
All the naysayers discounting Jimmie Johnson’s chances of winning a sixth consecutive title may have forgotten that one of the most critical components to success is confidence. Before you can achieve greatness, you must first believe in your ability to do so.
Obviously Johnson and his team have that confidence. They know they can come from behind to win it all because they have done it time and time again, a feat they’ll need to perform once again after a late-race crash at Charlotte dropped them to eighth in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings.
Still, this swagger and a reputation for overcoming seemingly impossible odds can put a mental beatdown of sorts on the competition; in fact, Denny Hamlin has all but admitted he is still feeling some of those effects from last season, when he finished second to Johnson in the final tally.
Life always seems easy when things are going your way. It is the challenging things like the limbs that obscure your view, the branches that can’t quite hold your weight and those pesky squirrels that just won’t get out of your way, that help you find your balance and develop your muscles.
With his performance in the Chase so far, Carl Edwards is showing us the true hallmark of a champion, past, present or future; when you fall five times, you get back up six times, and keep on climbing.
