Sunday, January 29th 'What If' Question

Think of it this way, since the season finale in Homestead the last few months could have been spent talking about Carl Edwards being the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion.

There would have been talk about him entering 2012 defending a title he captured after winning one race. How he brought team owner Jack Roush his third title in nine years after Roush had to wait 15 years for the first one courtesy of Matt Kenseth in 2003. Or maybe there would have been the columns about Edwards and Nationwide Series teammate Ricky Stenhouse Jr. giving RFR two titles in one year.

That could have happened but it didn't. Instead the talk as been primarily about Tony Stewart, who did win the championship and did so in history making fashion. Stewart was just one piece of a bigger puzzle that seemed to do Edwards in. It started by Stewart making the Chase, after running poorly through the summer months but not as poor as those trying to knock him out of the Chase.

Here are a few other pieces: Edwards would have been the champion if Stewart's gasman hadn't gotten enough fuel in the car at Chicagoland and New Hampshire, leaving him to run out and win the first two races of the Chase, earning those points. He would have been champion had Stewart not been able to pass Chevrolet teammate Jeff Burton at Phoenix, the second to last race of the year, to earn a few more points. He would have been champion had the rain in Homestead been nice enough to stick around for a while and made NASCAR call the race early.

And of course, he would have been champion had he been able to run down Stewart in the final laps at Homestead and beat him. But alas Edwards didn't and he entered the offseason looking to put a great season with a disappointing ending behind him. In 2012 he'll be again be a favorite for the title and has already started preparing to ensure he doesn't come up on the wrong end of a points tie again.

Earlier this month Edwards announced that he does not plan on running in the Nationwide Series unlike he's done ever since his NASCAR career started. Even when he moved to Cup he still kept a full NNS schedule on his docket, even winning the driver's championship in 2007 and bringing home the owner's title for RFR last season.

The decision perhaps has to do with both the fact that starting in 2011 Edwards and any Cup driver are ineligible for the NNS title and the fact that he badly wants a Cup title on his resume. With the announcement Edwards says that he hopes that not running in the NNS will help him focus more on his Cup efforts either through not having to lose practice time or spending more time with the team discussing the car, although he has learned things while racing on Saturday that helped him on Sunday.

And Edwards has also said that while right not he's not committed to running any races that doesn't mean he won't. Should he start getting an itch or have a hard time sitting still on Saturday's he says there's a possibility they would discuss letting him race.

But ...

What if Carl Edwards had won the Sprint Cup championship last season, would he still be opting to not race Nationwide this year?

@Matt_Kacar wouldnt of mattered either way. If they had nationwide sponsorship for him he would be running that series in 2012

@mbauerherzog Yes, because he'd have a taste of the championship and would want another one.

@Fishnwhistle He has nothing to prove in NNS, and everything in Cup.

@rcracer20 the way things went at the end,every driver should concentrate on primary ride,could be gone tomorrow #sponsorship$

@cruetten no. After achieving his main goal of winning a championship, he would be able to cut loose a little and have some fun in NNS!

@tvsmike Yes--he even said last season he wouldn't have run the entire 2011 NW season had he not already committed to it…after the "pick only one series" change.

@StrokerAce90 Carl had the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship in the bag and lost it to Smoke worse than Denny Hamlin did to Jimmie Johnson in 2010, so i'd say yes, Carl's opting outta NNS because he feels he needs to be more focused on Cup.