‘Self Conscious’ Carl Edwards Lets Slip Major Insecurity Moments After “D********” Declaration

“Heavy lies the head that wears the crown,” a Shakespearean quote that sums up Carl Edwards’ emotions at the peak of his powers. The Missouri native had carved a reputation as a ‘nice guy’ on the track, but once he started to see it wear off, he wondered why. The bright-eyed young kid who gave his business cards to people in hopes of a ride had turned into a race-winning machine, and that came with its mental consequences.

In 2025, the 28-time Cup race winner was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, much to his surprise. After his shock retirement in 2016, he didn’t expect much love from the NASCAR community. However, it was the change in his attitude at a pivotal point in his career that shaped it all. He detailed his emotions in a speech that didn’t leave a single dry eye in the room.

In his speech, he reflected on the lost friendship opportunities and his rude behavior and later elaborated on them in a press conference after the speech. Jenna Fryer from the Associated Press prompted him with the question: “You called yourself a d—— and mentioned a ‘facade of reputation’, when in your life did you sort of recognize that?”

When did the penny drop for Carl Edwards?

Truthfully, racing is a competitive business and there may be times when friendships have to be set aside. However, it is worth mentioning that despite his frosty relationships with drivers the fans loved him. Nevertheless, the former Joe Gibbs Racing driver now admits that he could have been less frosty with his rivals and had more allies.

Carl Edwards opened up on how tough it was to be the ‘nice guy’ who did backflips. The guy that we know today. “People who know you, what they know about you, is your character. I realized right then it’s gonna be a long painful process but I’m gonna try to treat people around me well… I don’t give a damn about my reputation. It was a really big moment for me, Very difficult. I’m a performer, I want people to clap for me and like me.” However, his journey to this realization is what matters more.

Edwards told Jenna Fryer, “So, I realized I was in the garage and I was really happy to be there. I was in the garage, I was winning I thought, ‘Man! I’m being respected, elevated.’ It really felt great. Then, it’s like somebody would cross me or do something, I would be like ‘Hey! They’re not respecting me.’ So now I got to get them back, set the score, got to always wreck a guy or go try to get a fight with him. Say something really pointed, cleverly towards him.”

Edwards won 16 races in his first four full-time seasons in the NASCAR Cup Series. Fair to say, he hit the ground running and caught the attention of the grid. As he mentioned, he was merely just happy to be among everyone when he started, but as he got success, the weight of his reputation started getting to him. Edwards was no longer a kid out of Missouri who got a chance to drive. At this point in his career, Edwards was confused. He confessed, “What’s funny is I didn’t even know myself very well.”

Edwards narrated an incident involving his brother that struck a chord and changed the way he viewed everything. “Some driver said something about me being a phony or a fake. And I was like ‘Man, why would they say that?’ And I was really upset about it. He [Carl’s brother] said ‘They don’t know you, why do you care so much what they think about you?’ And a light went off.” 

Now would be an appropriate time to call back the quote mentioned at the beginning of this piece. Edwards was carrying the weight of his wins, the weight of his reputation, of wanting to win a championship and to be better than everyone else. This burden only grew in mass every time anyone said something about him. He realized, “Oh my gosh. I care a lot about [what] people who don’t know me think… that’s called reputation.”

Separating reputation and character was a career-defining moment for Carl. It helped him understand why being polite is way more useful than trying to retaliate. He tried to understand his own faults on the racetrack more often than not. None exemplified this more than his career-defining crash with Joey Logano in 2016.

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Carl Edwards left the sport with zero regrets

Back in 2016, Carl Edwards was arguably still in the prime of his career, even at the age of 36. In the final race at Homestead-Miami, he was leading the way with 10 laps to go and the championship was in sight. Then it all came crashing down. Edwards tried to defend Logano on a restart and went crashing into the inside wall, ending his championship hopes. So what did he have to say about this incident after all these years? “I’m so grateful we didn’t win that championship,” Edwards said in his HoF speech.

Edwards had been through heartbreak already by that point, losing the 2011 title on a ‘most-wins’ tiebreaker against Tony Stewart. So when he addressed the 2016 title trace in his speech no one expected him to say, “I don’t care that we don’t have that championship. I knew about 20 laps to go in that race, what it felt like to have a championship team to run a championship race with Dave Rogers and those guys. That was special. That restart didn’t work out.” 

Edwards led 47 laps that race and he didn’t let an excellent drive be ruined by one bad restart. A mentality that all of us can learn to live by. Carl Edwards left the sport gracefully after that, citing that he wanted to give more time to his family. No one questioned his decision. There might have been some people curious as to what more he could have done. But what he had already done for the sport was incredible in itself.

In 2025, we salute Carl Edwards for reminding us that character is always worth more than reputation.