Carl Edwards tries to move past Homestead heartbreak

LAS VEGAS — Carl Edwards had an awkward Thanksgiving this year.

There wasn’t a word spoken about his gut-wrenching loss in the NASCAR championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, when his title hopes ended in a crash after he tried to block Joey Logano. And Edwards thought that was a little odd.

“There was a real absence of talk about it,” Edwards said of his family’s Thanksgiving. “It gave me that feeling that before I got there, people were like, ‘Hey, don’t mention it.’ It’s like, ‘Guys, come on. It’s not that bad.’ ”

But in reality, Edwards acknowledged it’s been a difficult couple weeks since he went from leading the championship battle to sitting on the track in his destroyed car. He called it “truly heartbreaking” and said it’s hard for him to talk about it.

“I honestly don’t want to look back on it,” he said Thursday.

He did anyway, though, because reporters asked. Edwards has handled himself with class and grace from the very moment the crash happened, even shaking hands with Logano’s crew in the immediate aftermath.

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The Joe Gibbs Racing driver said he tries not to ignore difficult moments or run away from them when they happen, and he spoke of the perspective he gained from the incident.

“Coach Gibbs put it best,” Edwards said. “He said, ‘I know this is hard, and that’s bad in a big way for you. But if you’re doing big things, it can go either really well or really badly. So just remember it’s an honor to do big things.’ ”

Crew chief Dave Rogers told Edwards it was the first time he’d ever had such a surreal feeling, like it wasn’t really happening — and Edwards agreed. Everything changed so quickly, he said.

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“That was the toughest part,” he added. “I felt like we had that race under control, and all the sudden we’re in the fence.”

Still, there’s nothing Edwards would have done differently.

“I went over that restart, I thought about it, I watched some replays,” he said. “Once Joey got that jump, I had to try to block. And that’s what it is. No regrets, just the way it went.”

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