“NASCAR was throwing cautions to make it exciting”: Carl Edwards pulls no punches on the ‘fact’ that influenced his 2016 Championship loss

Former NASCAR Cup Series driver Carl Edwards was recently featured in an episode of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s "Dale Jr. Download." In the episode, Edwards discussed the last race of his career at the end of the 2016 season.

Edwards competed in the top-tier stock car racing for 13 years. During his time in the Cup Series, he secured 28 wins, 220 top-10 finishes, and 22 pole positions in 445 starts. Despite having a solid career in the series, he never won a championship title. The NASCAR Hall of Famer came close to winning the title twice in 2008 and 2011 but fell one place short each time.

Carl Edwards recalled his memories of the Ford EcoBoost 400, held at Homestead-Miami Speedway on November 20, 2016. Former Stewart-Haas Racing driver Kevin Harvick won the pole position, and Edwards was in 10th place, one spot behind defending champion Kyle Busch.

The race was filled with yellow flags, and on lap 27, Ryan Blaney caused the first yellow flag by crashing into the outside wall in turn 1. The second caution came on lap 80 after Jeffrey Earnhardt spun out. Following the series of restarts, the sixth yellow flag was raised with ten laps to go in the final race.

On the restart, Carl Edwards tried defending Joey Logano's advance but got spun out after making contact with Logano's car's nose. Also, Kasey Kahne's car rear-ended Edwards' car, ending his day.

Reflecting upon the series of cautions raised in the race, Edwards said:

"There was something about that caution. It was like the final thing to say, damn it. You're not supposed to win this thing. This is not supposed to happen. and I know NASCAR was throwing those cautions to make it more exciting; that's a fact. and I specifically talked to people about it, and that's that. And, we're all in this sport to entertain, and they were trying their hardest at the time."

Carl Edwards wrapped up the race in P34 and the 2016 season in P4 with three wins, six pole positions, nine top-five finishes, and 18 top-ten finishes in 36 starts.

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“I got nothing to hide”: Carl Edwards on his broadcasting gig in the 2025 season

NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Carl Edwards is set to return to the Cup Series. He will begin his broadcasting career in the 2025 season with Amazon Prime Video in their five-race gig as an analyst. Despite being a former Cup Series driver, Edwards aims to give an unbiased analysis of the drivers.

The former NASCAR Xfinity Series champion retired from professional racing following the 2016 championship run with Joe Gibbs Racing. Since then, Edwards has maintained his distance from the sport but will return in 2025.

Reflecting upon the same, Carl Edwards stated (via The Athletic):

"The thing I’m excited about, and I feel like I can hopefully accomplish, is to get to talk a little bit about—especially since I’m not competing anymore, I got nothing to hide — there’s no trade secrets I don’t want to talk about."

"The thing I’m excited about, and I feel like I can hopefully accomplish, is to get to talk a little bit about—especially since I’m not competing anymore, I got nothing to hide — there’s no trade secrets I don’t want to talk about," he added.

After the horrific crash in the final race of the 2016 championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Edwards realized that NASCAR is a "risky sport" and took his retirement to spend time with his family.