Zandstra Feature
- 1. Page 1 134 of 728 DOCUMENTS St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri) July 20, 2007 Friday THIRD EDITION CARL EDWARDS HAS GONE FROM OBSCURITY TO STARDOM BECAUSE OF HIS DRIVE TO SUCCEED BYLINE: By Brian Sumers ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. D1 LENGTH: 812 words Carl Edwards scurried through the garage late one January night, asking if he could borrow a pair of gloves from one of the guys working on his truck. He was preparing to drive from the race shop outside St. Louis to his home in Columbia, Mo., and the Mazda 323 he often borrowed for the trip didn't have heat. Didn't have much else, either. "Someone had hit a deer with it," said Mike Mittler, the low-budget NASCAR trucks owner who gave Edwards his first real chance. "He nursed it along. He was a master at wheeling that thing around." On that cold night in 2003, just a few weeks before Edwards would sign the contract with powerhouse Roush Racing that would soon make him a household name, he was just another Missouri driver trying to make it big. He is huge now - the type of guy who poses shirtless in national magazines and makes People magazine's list of the 50 Hottest Bachelors - but Edwards has some simple hobbies for a five-time Nextel Cup winner. Instead of riding in his fancy coach bus to this weekend's Busch Series race at Gateway International Raceway, where he is defending champion, Edwards, 27, began Tuesday on a two-day bike ride from Columbia to St. Louis. He planned to wing it with overnight accommodations, saying he would stop wherever he could when his legs got tired. The Busch Series is one notch below the better-known Nextel Cup, but Edwards is a regular at both levels. So although some other well-known drivers took the weekend off, Edwards jumped at the chance to compete at Gateway, the same place where in 1999 he and a friend sneaked in by hopping a fence, jumping onto the track and walking to the garage area. "I guess I owe them a few bucks for a pit pass," he said, laughing. Edwards raced on dirt tracks then, and even though he had plenty of success, he could not get important people to take a look at him. And so in what has become NASCAR lore, he placed ads in racing magazines and shook hands with everyone he could, thrusting his business cards - the ones with his picture - into their hands. "It was hokey as heck," said his mom, Nancy Sterling.
- 2. Page 2 CARL EDWARDS HAS GONE FROM OBSCURITY TO STARDOM BECAUSE OF HIS DRIVE TO SUCCEED St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri) July 20, 2007 Friday Along the way he took chances, such as selling many of his possessions and hitting his parents up for $18,000 they didn't really have so he could buy a race car. He has since repaid them. "Yep," he said with his aw-shucks charm. "We're good there." Edwards remembers the big break coming in 2000, when he charmed Mittler at an Indianapolis racetrack after driving there with some friends. The friends left, and Edwards hitchhiked home, making it as far as St. Charles County, where his dad picked him up. But that was OK, because Edwards had a benefactor. "I had seen the ads in the paper, and I thought, 'Who is this pretty boy?'" Mittler said. "But then I saw him in person I thought, 'Man, this is a good guy.'" Mittler let Edwards help out his team, but the budding superstar didn't compete until 2002. He entered seven Craftsman Truck Series races that year, finishing in the top 10 once, and managed to catch Jack Roush's attention. Roush turned him into a star, on the track and off. Edwards is the current Busch Series points leader, but he might be known more as the smiling pitchman for Office Depot, appearing in commercials and cardboard cutouts. Even among casual fans, Edwards is known for doing a back flip after every victory, a tradition he started in 1999, when few were watching. Darren Beach was his mechanic back then, and he still does the same job for Edwards' Busch team. Beach remembers the transporter he and Edwards once used, an old church bus, and he laughs. "It wasn't much, man," Beach said. "We built a little sign up front. It said, 'Carl Edwards Motor Sports.' That was about the only thing that worked on the old thing." Edwards, too, remembers his past - he even thanked Mittler on national television after winning the Cup race at Michigan this year - but he understands he's no longer a struggling driver. He will never again hit his parents up for their savings. Or ride a church bus to work. Or pass out hokey business cards. But in a way, Edwards misses the old days. "It is my experience that the journey is as much fun as the destination," he said. He does keep at least one reminder of the journey, and it's tucked inside the garage of his home in North Carolina. There, he keeps a 17-year-old Mazda 323. He hardly ever drives it, and the thing still doesn't have any heat. "I had a lot of fun in that car," he said. "I don't know why I would get rid of it." --- GATEWAY 250 When: Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Where: Gateway International Raceway Tickets: Available on the Internet at Gatewayraceway.com, by phone at 618-875-7550, or in person at 700 Raceway Boulevard in Madison. Prices range from $45 to $65.
- 3. Page 3 CARL EDWARDS HAS GONE FROM OBSCURITY TO STARDOM BECAUSE OF HIS DRIVE TO SUCCEED St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri) July 20, 2007 Friday Parking: $15 before the race. $20 at the entrance. Television: ESPN2 --- Vote STLtoday.com/autoracing Who's your pick to win the Gateway 250? Vote in our online poll. LOAD-DATE: July 20, 2007 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH NOTES: BUSCH SERIES GRAPHIC: PHOTO PHOTO - Carl Edwards has spent a lot of time in stock cars this year as a regular in the Nextel Cup and Busch series. Edwards is fifth in the Cup standings and the runaway leader in the Busch Series. Jonathan Daniel | Getty Images PHOTO - Carl Edwards made a big splash last year with this cover shot for ESPN magazine. PHOTO - Carl Edwards makes his trademark back flip after winning a Busch Series race last year at New Hampshire. Getty Images PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2007 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc. All Rights Reserved