Carl Edwards, Ford looking for more in run-up to Chase

Carl Edwards currently sits second in the Sprint Cup points going into tomorrow’s race at Pocono Raceway, but that doesn’t change the fact that he has one of only two wins collected so far this season by Ford (the other coming from David Ragan at Talladega). He reckons that neither he nor his Roush Fenway Racing team are having a bad year, but feels that the manufacturer’s entire stable of teams need to do more in order to feel truly confident as the Chase gets closer.

For example, Edwards indicated that he’s open to his Roush Fenway Racing team having more conversations with the two-car group at Penske Racing, another Blue Oval squad.

“That’s something that I would be really interested in,” Edwards said on Friday at Pocono. “I know that Ford from the beginning of this season has said, ‘We want to be One Ford. We want to win together. We want to do everything we can.’ And I believe that what I’ve learned recently is that it’s not as simple as all the engineers get in the room and compare notes, because even if we understood where our strengths and weaknesses are, we have different manufacturing processes, different testing processes for the parts.

“So that process of joining forces and being a One Ford team, even if we opened all of our notebooks to each other, it’s not quite as simple as I thought it was or it might seem, so I guess what I’m saying is that’s on the table. We’ve talked about it and I believe that our success in the future is gonna involve a lot of teamwork between Roush Fenway Racing and Penske.”

To that end, Edwards said that he’s communicated regularly with Penske pilots Joey Logano and reigning Cup champion Brad Keselowski after numerous races this season. As for where his Roush Fenway team stands, Edwards is trying to keep things in perspective but again recognizes a need to get better now so they won’t be hurting later.

“If the Chase started right now, I think we’d be in a little bit of trouble,” he admitted. “I don’t think we are as fast as we need to be and the way we look at it is we’re not getting beat by a driver or a crew chief, we’re getting beat by organizations…We’re not bad. We’ve won a race. We’re second in points.

“We’re not panicking or anything, but we’ve got to make slight adjustments now that will hopefully pay off when the Chase starts because we don’t only want to be in the Chase, we want to be in this Chase and dominate it.”