Thursday, August 21, 2014

Did Carl Edwards admit he wasn't a team player for RFR?

Here's the most unethical comment I heard Carl Edwards say during the press conference for Joe Gibbs Racing on Tuesday

" “I have learned a lot about how to be a good teammate. Admittedly, I was not the best teammate at the beginning of my career.

“I felt I had a lot of the every man-for-himself attitude, and wanting to prove myself regardless of any damage to the relationships. I didn't think of it is a real team atmosphere.”

So did he admit that the last 10 years while being at Roush Fenway he hasn't been a good teammate and worked with the rest of the organization?  All in all I think there has been a big cloud over this team since 2011 and it all came about when Edwards got that big multi-million dollar deal to stay with Ford Racing.  You know that when that happened, Greg Biffle took a pay cut to stay on board the organization, Kenseth was hurting for sponsorship on the 17 car and there were a lot of rumors brewing about who Edwards' replacement was going to be if he left.

Now 3 years down the road, maybe some answers to the questions that fans have been having about Roush Fenway's problems are coming out of the closet.  Sure, Roush is a different structured organization than the Gibbs guys are, but if you can't work together as a whole team there's going to be some problems amongst the drivers and the teams crews.  I really think that there was a lot of animosity within the RFR organization because of Carl Edwards.  I've heard different stories of crew members taking pay cuts, and it was because of Bob Osborne first getting a huge (worthless deal) to start it all off to try and sway Edwards into staying, and then the big contract signing.

Now I look at the different approach for 2015.  People aren't seeing a lot of star power within Roush, however Jack Roush has said it numerous times, Ricky Stenhouse is as good of driver as anyone, he has just struggled to work himself into the cup level but when he does there will be success.  Trevor Bayne will be moving up full-time and he has quite a bit of Sprint Cup Series experience from being behind the wheel of a Wood Brothers car the last 3 seasons.  Bayne will be success, people just aren't giving the driver a chance to prove himself.  Greg Biffle will be the lead man, and I think in the past few weeks we've seen a difference in Biffle for a major reason - the organization is taking what he says and putting it into the cars, instead of taking the info from Edwards.

Then the announcement that Mark Martin is back within Roush. He may not be driving for the organization but this is a soothing ointment to some wounds. Martin has raced for a few organizations since he left in 2007.  He is going to be more than a drivers coach, he's going to be a team leader and they've not had that since he's been gone.  I believe that he will be able to help the 3 drivers work as a group and find what they're missing on the track.  Bayne and Stenhouse are a closer age group so they have a lot more in common and they worked well as a pair in the Nationwide Series, now they'll be able to do so on the Sprint Cup level.

Bayne will be racing the iconic number 6.  It was the organizations premier car from 1989-2005, and it is great to finally have the number back on the track.  Maybe, just maybe having Edwards leave will be a helping piece to fix some of the issues within Roush.  They won't have to pay out that big contract fee and they'll be able to have teammates that really can work together.. 

Oh and the part about Gibbs.  Four cars isn't always a great thing, there's usually someone that gets left out of the  picture and I don't see nothing changing about Edwards way of doing thing because when he goes to JGR, Kyle Busch is the top man for Toyota and he's going to want that attention. There's going to be a rivalry within the organization, to me its too many BIG Roosters in little hen house.

5 comments:

Loren Yoder said...

Thanks for the interesting read. Just curious, how well do you like Penske? Would you have kept rooting for Carl there?

Unknown said...

I like Roger, he's all business. And yes I would have likely stuck with Carl there. I'm a Ford guy, it's kind of like the rivalry between the Packers and Bears. You just can't go with the rival. I've always been for a Ford, I think that RFR will get things back together, maybe not next year but by 2016.

Loren Yoder said...

Thanks for the reply, I guess I'm a casual observer; I don't dislike Toyota so I will probably still like Carl....but right now, I'm very impressed with Joey Logano's driving in a ford this year so right now,he's my favorite...and I certainly respect your right to be a "ford drivers only" guy...I hope Trevor Bayne does well for you.

Loren Yoder said...

Oh and I really do like Ford and Roush and I hope Ricky and Trevor make as good a team next year as Joey and Brad do this year...

Unknown said...

I think Trevor and Ricky work really well together. They had a great relationship in the Nationwide Series, so I believe they'll carry it over.