Carl Edwards explains decision to leave NASCAR, pinpoints Homestead heartbreak

Carl Edwards is back in NASCAR and opening up about why he left after the 2016 Cup Series season. In an interview with Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Dale Jr. Download, Edwards explained his decision to leave after suffering a heartbreaking loss in the final race of the 2016 season at Homestead.

“So first of all, I don’t deserve anything and I’ve learned this … we were at church the other day and anybody knows me well, knows I’m historically an atheist at best but I’ve come to realize at 45 years old that if I try to write down a list of all the things God didn’t give me and that I did myself, there is just an empty sheet of paper in front of me,” Edwards said.

“I was wrestling with some things like this at the time. I was living something that wasn’t my plan. I worked so hard my whole life and felt like I deserved to win this thing and it was taken away from me. What I realized is that there was a bigger plan than mine, and all that stuff played out just perfectly. I was just along for the ride. I wasn’t sure how to deal with it, but it was the strangest feeling.”

Carl Edwards was a few laps away from winning the 2016 Cup Series championship

Carl Edwards was looking to win his first Cup Series championship in the Homestead race. He was leading with 15 laps remaining before a caution flag came out for a brake rotator cuff coming off of a car driven by Dylan Lupton. After the restart, Edwards crashed with Joey Logano, and Jimme Johnson went on to win his seventh Cup Series title.

It was a tough ending for Carl Edwards, who was recently inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. In his career, Edwards won 28 Cup Series races with 220 top-10 finishes in 445 starts.

Edwards has made his return to NASCAR, but not as a driver. This week, Amazon announced that the 45-year-old is part of the broadcast team for Prime Video. He will join host Danielle Trotta and NASCAR driver Corey LaJoie for the pre and post-race studio show.

“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,” Edwards told Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic. “I want to share with the fans what might be going on inside of that helmet, inside of that car.”