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NASCAR

Edwards, Osborne spark team with lively, respectful relationship

By SceneDaily.com

Aug 5, 2008

LONG POND, Pa. – Carl Edwards and Bob Osborne have enjoyed one of those special driver-crew chief relationships, the kind where a team seems to think as one and when incomplete sentences convey pages worth of thought.

Sunday, though, the Roush Fenway Racing pair found themselves at odds in the NASCAR Sprint Cup race as Edwards questioned Osborne's call to pit during a rain delay. It turned out to be the winning call - and perhaps a moment that will strengthen their relationship and add a new layer of trust between the pair. With the championship race looming, that could be the most important thing to come of the team's fourth win of the season.

The victory gives them a momentum boost, but the way it came about speaks volumes about the partnership of these two men - and becomes yet another nugget in both deepening that relationship and pushing them toward a championship.

The issue started when a caution came out for rain on lap 128 of Sunday's Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway. Edwards felt like the call was left a little in his corner as to whether to pit or not. With rain falling on the track, he felt certain the shower would pass and that racing would resume.

During a 41-minute, 6-second ensuing rain delay, though, he was less certain of that fact.

"My deal was, I felt like you left it to me a little bit," he said, speaking to Osborne during a postrace news conference. "And then what got me was Jimmie [Johnson]. They’d committed to coming, so I was like, ‘Well, we’ll go ahead and come.’ But if Bob would have said, ‘Stay out,’ that’s what we would have done, but I think we were both about 51 percent on the come-in side, and neither one of us were going to argue. But the argument came when it started raining real hard. Then we were trying to blame one another for the idea of coming. He said it was my idea, and I really felt like it was his idea, so that’s where the argument came."

The two walked away from the argument - and eventually to victory lane.

Even if the call had proved to be the one that doomed them in the race, Edwards says they would have gotten past it quickly. He doesn't see anything interfering with his relationship with the crew chief that he's worked with for the majority of his NASCAR career.

"We can be brutally honest with one another, and that’s really valuable," Edwards said. "There’s no beating around the bush. If Bob feels a certain way about something, he tells me, and I tell him, and, to me, that’s really valuable.”

"Carl and I, I don’t know what the perception is, but we argue on a regular basis," Osborne added. "It’s not out of the ordinary for us to
argue. We argue. We get mad at each other. We walk away and then we walk back together and calmer heads prevail and we have a discussion. We might argue again on the same subject and walk away and come back together, but through the arguments and through the discussions and through the handshakes and the hugs we come to terms with what we want to do and when we want to do it, and 99 percent of the time it works out for us.

"Yes, sometimes it doesn’t and when it doesn’t, we say, ‘OK, we argued through it. We came to terms. We came to an agreement, and it didn’t work out for either of us.’”

They know one another well enough to get through it. They perform better together than they ever have with others - and they are now on track for a run at the championship.

Edwards finished third in the standings in 2005, but some think this is his best chance to emerge as the victor in the 10-race Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Among those believers is team owner Jack Roush.

He says that the relationship of the two, and the evolution of this team, have them in championship shape.

"I’ll look at Carl and I’ll say this – and he may slap me, and he can if he wants – but he wasn’t ready to win a championship, I think, until this year," Roush said. "I think this year he can go head to head with Jimmie Johnson or Tony Stewart or with anybody else that’s there, and I think he can close the deal. The championship ultimately winds up normally being determined by how well you do when things go bad – when you have to say, ‘My car’s not right. We’ve had a little wreck. Something’s happened.’ Do you go in and self-destruct or do you manage to be in a frame of mind where you can go on and get the most out of it?

"Matt Kenseth and Robbie Reiser did a great job, and Matt’s doing a great job with Chip Bolin right now. They and Carl and Bob are in the same place with the best of the best, and unless you’ve got that maturity of wisdom – and presence and experience gives you that – within the organization and having a lot of speed in the car, being able to win a lot of races is not going to do it because when things go bad, you’re going to disintegrate, and Carl’s going to be ready to do that this year and I’m real confident."

Regardless, winning their fourth race - and getting the victory so close to the beginning of the Chase - certainly sparks the team. Five races remain before the Chase begins. Edwards and Osborne are currently third in the standings and have 30 bonus points for victories – Edwards lost the 10 points awarded for the Las Vegas win as part of a NASCAR penalty - for when that field is set.

So right now, things are looking good for the driver and his team. The relationships in this group are tight, and they are working as one. That can only help them once the championship run begins.

Edwards knows just how important this win might be to the team.

“I don’t believe in momentum so much, but I tell you what, the confidence could lead to some momentum," he said. "Seeing how happy my guys were, to me, that’s the most important part because 10 points at the end of the day is great. That’s wonderful, but I think the championship is probably going to be settled by more than that, and I feel like my guys having that little step in their walk is good.”