Carl Edwards and Ricky Rudd received the most votes to be in the Class of 2025 at the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Before the announcement, Edwards didn’t think he’d be chosen, so he wasn’t planning to be there. But he’s happy about it.
“It’s been a huge deal to me, much bigger than I ever would have expected,” he said.
Edwards didn’t always imagine himself as a race car driver. He started as a substitute teacher but later joined Roush Fenway Racing. He won 29 Cup races, 38 Xfinity races, and six Truck races.
In his 13-year Cup career, Edwards won the Coca Cola 600 and Southern 500. He finished second in the series standings twice, including a tiebreaker in 2011.
After the 2016 season, Edwards surprised everyone by announcing his retirement. He hasn’t raced since but has visited tracks and appeared on TV broadcasts.
He said he needed time away from racing. “I realized I woke up and I, you know, right towards the end of my career, I realized I’m not spending any time doing really anything other than racing and that time I’ll never get back,” Edwards explained. “I really felt that I had done everything I personally wanted to do in the sport.”
While Edwards is grateful for the Hall of Fame induction, he doesn’t plan to race again. “I did enjoy running the SIM a little bit last year and I think I’m going to go do a little bit more of that just to try to understand,” he said. “But I don’t have anything lined up right now.”
