Carl Edwards’ sudden retirement after the 2016 season landed like a bolt from the blue, blindsiding the garage and even a veteran like Dale Earnhardt Jr. He had just reached the Championship 4 for the fifth time in a 10-year NASCAR Cup career, a record that showed steady form even without a title to his name. The whole scene showed that he could win the championship at some point. Instead, he walked away without warning.
Advertisement
The turning point came at Homestead in the 2016 finale, where Edwards appeared to have the championship sewn up before a late caution reset the deck. The moment mirrored Denny Hamlin’s heartbreak last Sunday in Phoenix. On the ensuing restart, Edwards’ bid unraveled in a crash with fellow title contender Joey Logano. The hit ended his race and, soon enough, his Cup career.
Edwards finally addressed retirement questions openly on Dale Jr.’s podcast recently, but back then, Edwards had kept the true reasons close to the vest.
Since Junior was curious, he wanted to know whether that Homestead crash with Logano played a role, whether Edwards no longer felt right physically, whether concussions like Dale Jr.’s factored in, or whether he was simply finished with what he viewed as entertainment cautions.
So he reached out to Edwards about four or five years ago by text. Edwards replied with a handwritten, four-page letter that explained what had happened and what followed after Homestead in 2016. The letter, as Dale Jr. put it, offered long-sought closure.
“I reached out to him in a text message, and Carl wrote me back — a handwritten, four-page letter. He explained everything that was going on, what had happened…It gave me a sense of closure.”
“I wanted to understand, for my own peace of mind, whether he’d suffered some kind of physical issue, whether he was dealing with health concerns, or if he was just truly heartbroken by the caution, and by how that caution took away what looked like a sure thing right in front of him. Maybe it was a bit of both. But when he came on the show, everything he said lined up exactly with what he’d written in that letter.”
The manner of Edwards’ exit had puzzled everyone. He walked out and shut it down without a clear public explanation. When he joined the Dale Jr. Download in March 2025, he painted a fuller picture of a strange week leading into Homestead.
His motorhome never made it to the track in working order, breaking down a couple of times en route. He nearly crashed in practice and faced odd complications in his personal life. The week refused to find a rhythm.
Everything built to a brutal crescendo in the race. Finally, a late restart decided the title, and it followed a caution that many in the paddock questioned. NASCAR threw the yellow after Dylan Lupton cut a tire, yet Lupton reached the apron without incident.
Edwards believed the caution was added to spice up the show. He cited that moment as the final straw, which became the push that sent him out the door.
The sting cut deep because Edwards had poured everything into one goal: a NASCAR Cup Series championship. In 2011, he came as close as a driver can come without winning, tying Tony Stewart and losing the crown on a tiebreaker. That result left a scar.
Five years later, in his second season with Joe Gibbs Racing, he found himself back in position. He felt he had done everything right, only to watch a questionable call scramble the outcome. The letdown sent him into a mental spiral and hardened his resolve to step away.
The parallel with Hamlin frames the present. The JGR driver’s last Sunday’s loss at Phoenix echoed Edwards’ Homestead gut punch, yet the forecast differs. Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. both believe Hamlin will return next year to take another swing at the elusive championship. They expect him to regroup and press the attack rather than close the book.
