Edwards has found predictions don't mean squat

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Way back in February, Carl Edwards was No. 1. He was the media's darling, the consensus pick to win the 2009 title and, thus, destined to become Jimmie Johnson's ouster.

For a fan base itching for new leadership, that alone would make Edwards as popular as Dale Earnhardt Jr.

There was only one problem – the season hadn't started.

If there was ever a testament to what Johnson has and is about to accomplish, it's what Edwards has gone through in 2009. After winning a series-high nine races a year ago, Edwards remains winless this season. Now, with two races to go, not only is Edwards not going to dethrone Johnson, he's not even in contention.

"Of course it's frustrating," Edwards said Friday at Phoenix International Raceway. "That's why we do it, is to win. It sure feels good to win, and it's frustrating not to."

On the scale of disappointments this season, Edwards has to rise above the rest, including Earnhardt, who's mired in the worst year of his career. While Edwards did qualify for the Chase, he trumps all because of the expectations.

Beyond winning more races than anyone in 2008, Edwards scored the most top 5s and top 10s. He was the only driver to average better than a 10th-place finish throughout the season. His only major misstep came in the Chase race at Talladega when, in a bout with impatience, he sparked a 12-car wreck that wiped him out right in front of Johnson.

If not for that mistake, Edwards almost assuredly would have won the title. Instead, he lost it by 69 points.

But that memory faded by the time February rolled around. What the predictors remembered most wasn't Johnson winning his third straight title, but Edwards winning three of the final four races of 2008. That was enough to make him the consensus pick – a sort of snub that wasn't lost on Johnson.

"It's not annoying me. I mean everybody is entitled to their opinion," Johnson said prior to the season. "[But] in my opinion, we should be ranked number one, especially if you look at our stats and what we've done over the last three years."

Then he warned, "Whoever is ranked number one, the favorite going in, they still have to go out there and perform for 26 [races] and then for 10 after that."

Johnson was speaking from experience. During his three-year reign, he's watched his challengers come, go and not necessarily return – at least not right away. In 2006, it was Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin. The year after that it was Jeff Gordon. Last season it was Edwards.

There is no guarantee trip back to the top, which is something Edwards has found out the hard way.

Initially, things looked good after Kenseth, his teammate, won the first two races of 2009. The expectations were that would translate across the entire Roush Fenway organization.

But Edwards' season never took off. It took three months (or 12 races) before he recorded his second top five, a stretch that included his horrific wreck at Talladega. By then, he and the rest of Roush Fenway Racing were what they were – a team wanting for speed.

"The difference between this season and last season," Edwards explained, "is, instead of one out of 10 races where we're fast enough to win, as we are this season, last season I felt we were fast enough to win eight out of 10 races."

He came close to winning a few times. He was leading at Talladega when he got flipped into the catch fence, and he might have won at Texas in April had it not been for a bad pit stop. Had either of those results been different, maybe Edwards' season would have been, too. But they weren't, and when the Chase began Edwards came in limping – literally.

He broke his right foot playing Frisbee on Sept. 2, which relegated him to hobbling around on crutches for five weeks. The accident served more as a symbolic setback than actual one, because by that point of the season it was too late. Edwards still hadn't found the formula to keep up with Johnson and his Hendrick Motorsports teammates Mark Martin and Gordon, who outclassed him in every aspect – in qualifying, on pit road and with speed.

Now, after eight Chase races, Edwards sits in 11th – second-to-last – while Johnson has once again assumed his perch atop the standings.

In evaluating this season, Edwards takes solace in what he accomplished last season when he "won more races, scored more points" and was able to "beat [Johnson] head to head a lot of times."

"I'm not demoralized yet," Edwards said. "I feel like we can go out there and beat 'em next year just like we did last year, but we've got to go do it. We've really got to work hard. They've definitely raised the bar."

And because, as Johnson warned back in February, championships aren't won by preseason predictions, but what you do on the track.