"He said, 'I'm not going to share with you'": When Joe Gibbs felt dumbfounded about Carl Edwards' sudden exit

NASCAR driver Carl Edwards walked away from the sport in 2016, after having spent 12 seasons driving full-time in the Cup Series. When Edwards initially began his full-time Cup-level career, he was driving for Roush Fenway Racing, until 2015, when he made the move over to Joe Gibbs Racing. After two years with the team, and ending the season with a fourth-place finish in the standings, the driver decided to step away from the sport, surprising his community of fans and drivers, as well as team owner Joe Gibbs.

In an interview from 2019, Gibbs spoke about how Carl Edwards' decision caught him off guard, calling it one of the most shocking moments of his life:

"I would have to say that conversation might have been (in) my top five as far as shocks for me in life,"

Gibbs' comments came from an appearance on the Dale Earnhardt Jr.-hosted podcast, the 'Dale Jr. Download', in which he talked about how his driver came to him during the off-season to let Gibbs know that he would be stepping away from the sport. While the team owner tried to convince Edwards' to stay, it seemed that the driver had made up his mind. When asked about the reasons behind Carl Edwards' resolve in retiring, Gibbs said:

"Never really ever really got to them. He said, ‘I’m not going to share with you. I’m not going to share with anybody the real bottom lines,’ … I will say this right now, I feel good about it from the standpoint, we still talk every now and then. Last time I called him he was on his boat in the Bahamas. I said, ‘Well, you’re doing pretty good.'" [via Autoweek]

By the end of his career in the Cup Series, Carl Edwards had achieved 28 race wins, along with 124 Top-fives, as well as 220 Top-10 finishes.

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Carl Edwards had no regrets about leaving racing

Carl Edwards announces his retirement during a press conference at Joe Gibbs Racing headquarters, January 11th 2017 - Source: Imagn

Two months after racing at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, where Carl Edwards ended his NASCAR career after a crash with Joey Logano relegated him to fourth place in standings, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver made an announcement from the JGR headquarters that he would be stepping away from the sport.

Publicly, Edwards has said that he has chosen to stop racing because he felt that he has accomplished everything he had set out to achieve in NASCAR, racing was taking up too much of his time, and he was still healthy and able, having not encountered any major injuries or ill-effects from being in a race car.

At the press conference in 2016, Edwards said:

“I’ve been racing for over 20 years. It’s been something that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I have no regrets. It’s been a blast, and I owe thanks to a lot of people.” [via The Florida Times-Union]

This year, Carl Edwards will be part of the broadcasting team acting as a pre- and post-race analyst at Amazon Prime Video for the five races that they will be streaming, beginning with the Coca-Cola 600 on May 25th.