Carl Edwards

Carl Edwards came within a point of becoming the 29th driver to win a Sprint Cup title when he tied Tony Stewart in the final 2011 standings only to lose the tiebreaker thanks to Stewart’s five victories (all in the Chase) to Edwards’ one.

Edwards has 19 career Cup victories and is expected to be a strong championship contender again in 2012.

The first of his Cup wins came in March 2005 at Atlanta – a day after his first Nationwide Series win in a weekend that solidified him as a star in the making.

He got his start driving a truck part-time – and at times, the hauler – for the Mittler Brothers. After the 2002 season, he was signed by team owner Jack Roush.

Edwards won three truck races in 2003 and three more in 2004 with 22 top-fives in 50 races. Roush tabbed him to replace Jeff Burton in the No. 99 Sprint Cup car in August 2004.

Starting in 2005, Edwards has spent every season running the full schedules in both the Nationwide and Cup series, something he won’t do in 2012 as he will cut back his Nationwide schedule.

In his first season of double duty, Edwards won four Cup races and finished third in the standings to go along with five wins and a third-place finish in Nationwide as well.

His Cup career has had its ups and downs. He went winless in 2006, won three times in 2007 and then nine times on his way to a second-place finish in points in 2008. He then went winless for all of 2009 and nearly all of 2010 until he won the final two events of the 2010 season.

Edwards then rebounded in 2011. Even though he just had one win, he had 19 top-five finishes, more than in his previous two seasons combined.

The winner of the 2007 Nationwide Series title and second in the series standings in 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010, Edwards has 37 career victories in that series.