When the NASCAR Hall of Fame nominees for the class of 2025 were announced earlier in the week, the name that stood out the most wasn’t one of the three new nominees.
No disrespect toward Greg Biffle, Jack Sprague or Randy Dorton — all of whom made a significant impact on the sport — but there’s another nominee still looking for the necessary votes who deserves to be enshrined before anyone else is even mentioned.
That would be Missouri’s own Carl Edwards, who quickly rose to prominence in the mid-2000s driving for legendary car owner Jack Roush.
In a NASCAR career that spanned 15 seasons from 2002 to 2016, Edwards quickly became known as a perennial title threat in the NASCAR Cup Series, and he won the NASCAR Busch Series championship in 2007.
Despite six top-five points finishes in his 12 full-time Cup Series seasons, Edwards was never able to bring home an elusive Cup Series championship, an accomplishment that would likely have put him in the Hall of Fame a few years earlier.
Edwards’ last NASCAR race ended up being the 2016 championship race at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. Instead of a planned spectacle, however, his final start ended up being his most crushing championship defeat yet, as a late crash took him from the championship lead to fourth in the final standings. Jimmie Johnson hoisted his seventh and final Cup Series championship as a product of Edwards’ misfortune.
Edwards has seldom been heard from since his brutal championship loss in 2016. He’s appeared at select races through the years, including last year’s celebration of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers at Darlington, a list Edwards was named to.
The 44-year-old won 28 races in the Cup Series. Even without a championship, that makes his career worthy of a Hall of Fame bid. While he’ll have plenty of future chances to be forever enshrined in racing history, he’s the top candidate on this year’s Modern Era ballot.
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