When Carl Edwards abruptly stepped away from NASCAR earlier than the 2017 Cup Sequence season, it was a serious shock. A driver stepping away in his prime? It isn’t one thing that you simply see fairly often.
Since his sudden retirement, Carl Edwards has been reclusive. He has been doing the household factor and farming and flying his airplane. There have been a ton of rumors about seeing Edwards out and about or what wild factor he was doing now that he wasn’t racing.
After being named one in all NASCAR’s 75 Biggest Drivers in 2023, Edwards has been coming round extra. Now that he’s set to enter the Corridor of Fame, he could possibly be round much more.
As for his retirement? He doesn’t remorse the choice. Nonetheless, he has different regrets, as he instructed Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic.
“I don’t remorse leaving. I might have most likely accomplished it higher,” Edwards mentioned. His retirement got here on January 9, 2017. “I wasn’t good at it. I by no means even thought-about doing one thing like that. So if I needed to do it over once more, I most likely might have accomplished it in a extra gracious method.”
With an opportunity to do it once more, Carl Edwards believes he would have accomplished it in another way.
“I actually thought that as a result of I left so abruptly, I felt just a little little bit of guilt round that,” he mentioned to Bianchi. “And I felt prefer it was completely honest for the game to carry that in opposition to me and maintain me at a distance. So I by no means imagined they’d welcome me on this method. It’s the primary time I actually felt like I understood what the NASCAR household is. It’s so unusual for NASCAR to ask me again like this with this honor after I walked away eight years in the past.
He didn’t count on the NASCAR world to welcome him again in with a Corridor of Fame nomination and induction. However that’s what occurred.
“It’s unbelievable the extent of acceptance and love and respect for me and all that. It’s simply been overwhelming.”
Carl Edwards is among the most proficient drivers in NASCAR historical past. When he was successful on the top of his profession, he was electrical as some other driver. His rivalries on observe, his backflips after wins, and the affect he left on the game by leaving when he did.
All of that and extra make up the story of Carl Edwards. A Corridor of Fame story.
