Carl Edwards' final career race at Homestead one for the books
The last Cup race for Carl Edwards wasn't one for him to celebrate, but it sure was one for the books.
Edwards was among the four drivers vying for the NASCAR Cup Series championship and had led 47 laps in the 2016 regular-season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. A controversial late caution wiped out a likely Edwards cruise to the championship and set up a restart with 10 laps remaining.
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On the front row and as the highest-running championship driver, Edwards tried to block Joey Logano's move — Logano had restarted in third — to the inside on the restart. Logano turned Edwards, who hit the inside wall and was then collected by several more drivers as he spun up the track.
"I just pushed the issue as hard as I could because I figured that was the race there," Edwards said after getting out of the infield medical center. "Joey timed it perfectly. ... I just thought I'd have a little more time."
Jimmie Johnson went on to win the title. Less than two months later, Edwards retired.
"Forty laps to go, 30 laps to go, 20 laps to go, that's what I live for," Edwards said at his retirement announcement. "I mean, that is it. That is racing to me. ... To be in that position and to know that day we were getting it done, literally that's what I live for.
"And that part of Homestead, for me, personally, I won. That's what it's about. And the outcome obviously I wasn't happy with, and that's frustrating and everything, but I feel really good about that."
Was it the caution that sparked him to retire? Was he just fed up with the indiscriminate nature of the NASCAR playoffs?
"People say you're mad at NASCAR," Edwards said when he retired before issuing this quip: "It's like, well, not any more mad than I normally am at NASCAR."
Edwards went on to say he had a good relationship with the NASCAR brass at the time.
One image, beyond the crash, that will live on in Edwards lore is that he went up to Joey Logano's pit box to shake the hand of Logano's crew chief.
"It shows who Carl is, right?" Logano said earlier this summer. "He's a tough competitor, as he should be. But I think he also saw things in a fair way. He knew what we were racing for the day. He knew he threw a big block. I didn't lift, and we ended up wrecking.
"You could place blame on that one and the both of us, probably, but really you can blame the most on just what it is — it's the championship and I wasn't going to lift for that. I think the fact that he was able to process all that so quickly and walk up to my pit box and do a pretty stand-up thing, it was pretty cool."
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass, and sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass.