Carl Edwards Says He Knows For A Fact That NASCAR Was Throwing BS Cautions During His Final Race In 2016

Cousin Carl had enough.

In one of the more shocking retirements in NASCAR history, Carl Edwards suddenly announced that he was stepping away from the sport back in January 2017. The announcement came just two months after Edwards had come close to winning his first NASCAR Cup Series championship, making the final four before eventually finishing the season 4th in the final standings following a late-race wreck in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

At the time nobody really understood the decision from Edwards: He still seemed to be at the top of his game, was driving for one of the best teams in NASCAR at the time with Joe Gibbs Racing, and had given no indication that he was thinking about retirement.

Edwards was also one of NASCAR’s most popular drivers at the time, so fans were both disappointed and confused when he stayed away from the sport for quite a while after retiring. But over the past year or so, since being elected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame last year, Edwards has slowly been coming around more and more – and he’s finally speaking out on his decision to hang it up when he did.

As it turns out, that final race at Phoenix seems to have played a bigger role in his decision than anybody really knew at the time – and it was all because of his frustration with how it played out.

During a recent appearance on the Dale Jr. Download podcast with Dale Earnhardt Jr., Edwards spoke about that race and why it made him rethink his future in the sport.

And before we get into what he said, let’s look at how that race played out.

Edwards had looked like one of the dominant cars for most of the race, leading 43 laps and fighting for the top spot for most of the race. (Remember, this was the championship race, so if he won the race he won the championship, and even if he didn’t win the race, he could still win the championship if he finished ahead of the other 3 drivers in the final four).

Kyle Larson led most of the race, though he wasn’t racing for the championship so it didn’t really matter if he finished ahead of Edwards or not. And with 15 to go, Edwards was running second, behind only Kyle Larson and in position to win the championship.

But then, the entire race changed when NASCAR threw a caution for the #32 car of Dylan Lupton, a part-time driver who ran in the back of the pack all night.

Lupton got sideways in the turn after blowing a tire, but managed to save the car from spinning out and keep going to make it to pit road. It didn’t really appear to be an incident that was enough to draw a caution, so naturally many speculated that NASCAR chose to throw the yellow flag to set up a sprint to the finish for the championship.

Well during the caution, all the cars came down pit road and Edwards came out of the pits in second, lining up on the inside of the front row with fellow championship contender Joey Logano lined up directly behind him and all three of his fellow final four drivers in the top 6.

On the ensuing restart, Edwards went low to try to block a run from Logano and ended up getting turned into the inside wall, taking a hard hit and ending his race – and his chance at his first Cup Series championship.

And according to Edwards, that entire sequence helped him realize that it was time for him to hang it up:

“There was something about that caution, it was like the final thing to say, ‘Dammit, you’re not supposed to win this thing. This is not supposed to happen.'”

To make it more frustrating, apparently Edwards doesn’t believe that the caution should have happened at all.

He goes on to drop the bombshell accusation that NASCAR threw the caution just to make things more exciting at the finish:

“I know NASCAR was throwing those cautions to make it more excited. That’s a fact. I specifically talked about it, and that’s that. And we’re all in this sport to entertain, and they were trying their hardest at the time…

It was an outstanding set of circumstances. It was very odd. But now I realize, it was the best thing in the world for me, and I was able to get the message that I did not belong in a race car. That was not what I was supposed to be doing with my life.”

Edwards said the race made him realize that he didn’t want to go out and compete for a championship in 2017, only to have it taken away by a BS caution or a decision NASCAR made to try to make the race more entertaining:

“I wanted to win that championship. It’s everything I’ve worked for. That’s it. That’s the prize you want more than anything in the world. And yes, I believe that was snatched. That’s part of it, yes. And that was very difficult.

So I had to look and say, ‘Ok, let’s go to the next year.’…

I am going to go and I am going to continue. I’m going to put everything in my life second, in the backseat, and I’m gonna go start at Daytona and I’m gonna drive the hell out of this race car like I’ve been doing for 13, 14 years, and I’m gonna run this thing all the way to the end, and give everything I’ve got, another year of my life… And then I’m going to get to Homestead at the end of 2017, I’m going to do everything just right, and they’re going to throw a caution with five to go? And we’re going to put all this on a restart?

And I thought, ‘Damn, I don’t know if spending a whole year of my life and all the things you give up and possibly give up for one restart?'”

I mean, when he puts it that way, his decision to retire makes a lot more sense. He was frustrated with how things were going in the sport, and felt like he had a championship taken away from him for the sake of entertainment. And he wasn’t sure that it was worth it to go through all that again.

And phantom cautions are nothing new in NASCAR. The sport gets criticized all the time for their officiating decisions and when they decide to throw a caution or not throw a caution. It’s already been a big source of controversy this year after last-lap crashes at Daytona and Atlanta resulted in different decisions from NASCAR on whether to throw a caution.

It sucks that it ended that way for Carl, but it sounds like he’s happy with his decision (even if he’s not happy with what happened to lead him to that decision), and it’s good to see him around the sport more and more.

Edwards was even recently announced as a broadcaster for the upcoming races that will be on Amazon Prime, so we’re going to be seeing a lot more of Carl this season than we have in a while – which is, for the record, a great thing for the sport.

And I have a feeling he’ll have no problem calling out NASCAR if they decide to throw another BS caution…

If you want to check out his full interview with Dale Jr., it’s well worth your time and maybe one of the best NASCAR interviews I’ve heard in a long, long time.