Carl Edwards – the NASCAR star who wrecked Doran’s No. 77 Aflac Ford-Dallara Daytona Prototype in his and co-driver Marcos Ambrose’s debut in the Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 at Montreal – had all sorts of reasons to be bummed out about his racing weekend at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
He had every reason to quit. First, since graduating to NASCAR, he’s not scored a road-course win. While Edwards has done decently by many standards, that he could over his career thus far win on ovals and capture championships while still failing to get even one road-course win grated him.
Then, there was the terrible embarrassment of Saturday’s Rolex Sports Car Series race, where he jumped on the gas a little too hard – at the time “he was putting in his usual 104-percent when he probably needed to do about 98,” is how Kevin Doran described it - just about one turn before he’d get off the gas and cruise in to assume his 8th-place grid spot. Imagine how Edwards must’ve felt at that final quiet moment when all the noise abruptly ceased as he sat still in the No. 77 Alfac Ford-Dallara’s cockpit.
Edwards could’ve gone through the motions in Sunday’s Nationwide Series race on the same track and drove his CitiFinancial No. 60 Roush Fenway Racing Ford to another respectable finish and taken home the resulting paycheck and, perhaps, gain a couple or three points on Nationwide Series leader Kyle Busch.
Yet, he shared a common trait that’s seen again and again in winners and champions in whatever endeavor, they just don’t quit. Not quitting isn’t a guarantor of success, but it’s much like the salesman’s credo: “You can’t possibly get a ‘yes’ if you aren’t willing to hear a ‘no.’” Edwards said as much after he won Sunday’s Nationwide Series race.
Here’s a guy for nearly all of that race followed a now-competing Ambrose, sometimes well back in the field, lap after lap and, at times, was sure there was no way Ambrose could be headed by anyone, much less he.
And yet, at the last turn of the final lap, Ambrose bobbled and Edwards slid into the lead. Some say Ambrose handed Edwards the victory but the latter couldn’t have possibly won it if he’d given up at any time beforehand.
“That’s the lesson, I guess,” Edwards said, “You don’t give up.”
Later,
DC
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