How Carl Edwards climbed from Missouri grassroots origins to NASCAR Hall of Fame

Carl Edwards was the ultimate grassroots racer.

His first signature backflip off a race car came on a dirt track in his native Missouri, and he eventually backflipped his way into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was inducted Friday night.

Edwards, a one-time high school substitute teacher in Columbia, Missouri, dominated the short tracks of the Midwest. He knocked on doors and even handed out business cards to NASCAR race teams until he finally got his big break in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series.

And it didn’t take long before Edwards began punctuating victories with backflips, including 28 NASCAR Cup wins, for legendary owners Jack Roush and Joe Gibbs.

“I am so lucky …” Edwards reflected upon his election to the Hall of Fame. “I grew up racing at my local dirt track and didn’t even imagine I would get to drive in NASCAR. I couldn’t have imagined any of this stuff.”

In all, Edwards, one of the sport’s most versatile drivers, won 72 career races across all three national series from 2002-16, which ranks 14th all-time. That included 38 wins in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and the 2007 series championship. He also won six NASCAR Craftstman Truck Series races.

“The overwhelming thought is a wave of gratitude,” said Edwards, 45. “People who put everything they had to make these cars go fast and helping me … it’s a reminder how much so many people did and how much fun I got to have.”

Edwards never won a NASCAR Cup Seres championship but was a runner-up twice, including 2011, when he lost on a tie-breaker to Tony Stewart in the closest championship race in history; and in 2008 when he finished second to Jimmie Johnson despite winning a career-best and series-most nine races.

Edwards appeared headed for the NASCAR Cup Series championship in 2016 when he was leading the season finale with 15 laps to go, only to be derailed by a controversial caution. After the restart, Edwards tried blocking an on-rushing Joey Logano that resulted in a nasty collision, allowing Johnson to win his seventh and final title.

A crestfallen Edwards would not race again. He shocked the sport by retiring during the offseason at age 37. Though the telegenic Edwards was one of NASCAR’s most popular drivers and appeared in numerous commercials and television shows such as “The Price is Right” and as a co-host on “Live with Kelly Ripa” , he withdrew from public view.

Edwards insisted the outcome of that race did not lead to his retirement.

“Definitely, I would have rather not have had a caution come out,” Edwards said in May after his election to the Hall of Fame. “But you never know the outcome of that, and like I’ve said, I wouldn’t change a thing … I think things would have been a lot different if we won that championship.”

Not only did Edwards never look back on his decision to retire at the top of his sport, he never wondered what might have been had he stuck around longer.

“I guess I don’t look back,” said Edwards, who operates a farm outside Columbia, does volunteer work, flies airplanes and captains a boat to countries around the world. “When I left, I felt I got everything that I could ever have imagined out of the sport for me personally.

“Of course, I would have liked to have won a couple of (Cup) championships. We performed well enough to do that, but I was a mature enough competitor to realize that the performances were really the thing. To be able to step away … I know it was unorthodox, I know it was abrupt to everyone, but Coach Gibbs helped me to do that, and it was the exact right time for me. I feel it worked perfectly. I don’t regret one thing other than the void I need to fill … to see everybody again and make sure everyone knows much I appreciate the relationships.”

Edwards began his Cup career in 2004 with Roush Racing. His eighth-place finish in a 2002 Craftsman Truck race at Kansas Speedway for MB Motorsports, a modestly-funded team based in St. Louis, caught the eye of Roush, who signed Edwards for 2003. Edwards became trucks series Rookie of the Year in 2003 and moved on to the Xfinity series in 2005.

Edwards won his first Cup race in 2005 at Atlanta, and he ran both the Xfinity and Cup series simultaneously for seven years — a practice not allowed anymore - winning the Xfinity title in 2007. After 11 years with Roush Racing, Edwards moved on to Joe Gibbs Racing in 2015 where he won five Cup races in two years and finished in the top five in both seasons.

“Carl Edwards was very versatile when it came to winning races,” said Fox television analyst and former NASCAR crew chief Larry McReynolds. “He could win them on short tracks, he can win them on superspeedways and on any and everything in between.”

“To me,” McReynolds continued, “a NASCAR Hall of Famer is about your numbers, but it’s about your contribution to the sport, as well. Carl Edwards not only did a phenomenal job behind the wheel of that race car, but he did a phenomenal job outside the race car, about being a great ambassador for the sport. The whole time Carl was part of NASCAR, he was a great ambassador.”

Edwards’ election to the Hall of Fame came as no surprise to Denny Hamlin, a former teammate and competitor.

“He was just always fast,” said Denny Hamlin, a future Hall of Famer. “I just think he was one of the most gifted drivers that you could put in any type of car and he would adapt ultra quick. His talent level far exceeds what his win total was.”

This story was originally published February 7, 2025 at 11:08 AM.