"Stressful Stressful Stressful!"

(The title is a direct quote from Carl Edwards, the first three words he said during his after-the-race interview on television.)

I will admit it now . . . I hate restrictor plate racing.  It seems like a very expensive demolition derby, except the risk to life and limb is astronomically higher.  It makes about as much sense to me as taking the drivers out to pit road to play a game of craps.  "Oh, you rolled a 3.  Sorry, you have been eliminated from the championship hunt."  Does not sound fair to me.

My stomach is tied in knots before the haulers leave the Gibbs shop.  Once they arrive at the track, I pray they will get through practice without incident, then survive qualifying, and finally find themselves upright and in one piece when the checkered flag flies.  A good finish is a bonus.

So it is not a surprise that I was tense when Carl finished the first qualifying session in 31st.  The car had a vibration, and the crew was struggling to find and fix the cause.  Eventually they must have figured things out, though, because he was 4th fastest in the second and final practice.

In qualifying, though, he was only 13th in the first round, so he did not move on to the second and final round of qualifying.  And then, because he had received his fourth inspection warning, he lost his pit stall selection.  Fortunately he was positioned between two reasonably safe drivers and not all that far away from his teammates.

The Gibbs camp came into the race with a clear strategy to survive.  Along with two of his teammates who also had a bit of a points buffer to play with, he dropped to the rear of the field before the start of the race.  And there they stayed for the entire 192 laps of the race.  When they dropped the green flag, he was in 39th place.  Except for green-flag pit stop sequences, he never got higher than 25th place.  (He did lead a lap during one green-flag cycle, earning a point for doing so.)

During the course of the race, a couple of strong contenders lost engines, sending them to the garage and home with poor finishes, which helped give Carl a bit more wiggle room.  And oddly enough, this 'Dega race never had a "big one."  The most significant incident involved one car veering to the inside and collecting two other cars.  Let's face it, a three-car pileup is not much of a situation at a superspeedway known for accidents that ordinarily take out half a 40-car field.

As a result of that minimum bit of attrition combined with a cautious attempt to move up a bit during the last few laps, Car was able to bring his #19 Subway Toyota Camry home in 29th place.  Good enough for 7th on the Chase grid, just four measly but beautiful points ahead of the cut-off line.  He was 7th in the drives' standings before the reset, 18 points behind the leader.  After the points were reset in preparation for the next round of the Chase, he sits in 5th place based on NASCAR's tiebreaker system.

Much is being discussed about the Gibbs chosen survival strategy.  Everybody has an opinion, so I will thrown mine in to the mix.  Every type of competition requires the participants to employ a variety of skills and strategies.  In poker you not only have to know to match up the best assortment of cards and place savvy wagers, you also have to read your opponents and disguise your behavior.  In marathons, you have to keep yourself hydrated and run within yourself to have enough strength to make it to the end.  In gymnastics, you not only have to have the physical skills to perform the acrobatics and endurance to complete a full routine, you also have to have the wisdom to select skills that you are likely to be able to complete with some degree of reliability.  In other words, every sport requires a multidimensional approach for success.

The same is true in auto racing.  You need an aerodynamic car with a powerful engine.  You need a driver highly skilled in maneuvering a car around a track combined with a knowledgeable crew chief who was identify and make critical adjustments in the blink of an eye. You need a spotter with the eyes of an eagle and a pit crew with lightning-fast reflexes.  The driver needs to make split-second decisions based on the behavior of the drivers around him and his knowledge of the history of those drivers.

And you need a strategy.  Are you going to spend your money on horsepower or wind tunnel tests?  Are you going to tinker with this or upgrade that?  Are you going to go pedal to the metal at the drop of the green flag, or are you going to save your equipment so you have something left at the end of the race?  And in restrictor plate racing, are you going to avoid trouble by staying in the front or hanging in the rear?

The correct decision is the one that works.  When you go pell mell from the beginning of the race and lead the majority of laps on your way to victory, you look like a genius.  But if you burn up your tires and don't have any Goodyears left for the final restart, getting run over in the process, you are chided for not making a good decision.  

Would it have been more fun for Carl's fans if he ran in the top 3 all day?  Of course.  It would have been more fun for Carl, too.  But he did not qualify in the top 3.  Could he have gotten up there?  Or might he have fallen back into the deadly middle of the pack?  The one option he did have at his disposal was to fall back.  So he did.

And guess what . . . he lived to fight another day.  He moved on to the next round of the Chase.  A fast racecar and a bit of luck for the next three races and he could very well find himself in the hunt for the championship when the haulers roll into Homestead.  Today the Gibbs strategy gave him the chance to do exactly that.

Sometimes you are good.  Sometimes you are lucky.  And sometimes you are smart.  Whatever it takes.