NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Carl Edwards will be leaving Roush Fenway Racing at the end of this season. The announcement was made on Sunday before the Sprint Cup race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Edwards has been with Roush since 2003. Roush is the only team that Edwards has driven for. He has been in the Cup Series since 2004. He has 23 Cup series win and has finished fourth or higher in the points four times, according to NASCAR.com. He has 38 Nationwide Series win and won the 2007 Nationwide Series title with Roush. He also has six wins in the Camping World Truck Series. In NASCAR's three national series Edwards has 67 wins.
"Right now, the mission is to win this championship, this race," Edwards said. "This is my decision. It's a decision I made, and I didn't take it lightly. Sometimes you just want to make a change, and opportunities present themselves and you say, 'Hey, what was that like to not take that opportunity?'"
Roush had made Edwards an offer to stay with the team.
"Like football, baseball and basketball, athletes move around," Jack Roush, owner of Roush Fenway Racing, said. We wish it would not happen, but there's curiosity about what another team's situation would be like and I think that although I shouldn't speculate, I think Carl wanted to try something different before he saw his career get in its middle term and its final years.”
It is believed that Edwards will go to Joe Gibbs Racing next year. He did say that he had a deal with another team done but wasn’t ready to talk about it. His contract prevents him from announcing his plan until September. Roush also announced its driver lineup for next year. Greg Biffle, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Trevor Bayne will drive for Roush in the Cup series next year, according to the Associated Press.
Edwards’s decision to leave Roush is based on winning a championship. He has come close to winning one with Roush but has failed to win it. He hopes that he will have a better chance to win a championship with another team. Edwards has two wins this season and is eighth in points.