NASCAR At Talladega: Carl Edwards Ducks Questions About Richmond Restart

Choosing his words ever so carefully – perhaps in an attempt not to offend NASCAR and not say anything that would reignite a controversial situation – Carl Edwards expertly skirted questions about last week’s race at Richmond International Raceway on Friday.

Instead of discussing the events of last Saturday night – when Edwards jumped the restart and was black-flagged with 81 laps to go – the driver preferred to solely focus on Sunday’s running of the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway.

Richmond questions from the assembled media resulted in few answers.

“Last week is last week,” Edwards said. “That is done and behind us. There is nothing that I can do or say that is going to change it. That is last week.”

If there was a lesson to be learned from everything that transpired, Edwards said the next time he’s in a similar situation, he’ll approach things differently. But he wouldn’t divulge exactly what that was.

“No,” Edwards responded when asked to explain what it was he learned. “I learned a lot last week. Like I said, that is last week and that is it.”

The message Edwards wanted to deliver more than anything was he has moved on and there is nothing that can be done one way or another to alter the outcome. And as he said last weekend following the 400 lap race, he felt he was the leader and as such, had the right to dictate the speed heading to the start/finish line.

In the end, all the Roush Fenway Racing driver could do was try and make the best of the situation

“For me personally, when something like that happens, I have been working on doing just what I did,” Edwards said. “I gave my honest assessment of what I thought happened and how I felt about it. I spoke with NASCAR and came to the conclusion that those actions are all that I can take. That is it.

“There is nothing else that I can do. I am satisfied with that personally that I did everything I could do and that is that.”