CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Office Depot Ford Fusion –

WHAT’S YOUR CONTRACT STATUS?  “I signed my contract yesterday, so I’m staying with Roush.  I looked at everything and I talked to everybody and, for me, the number one thing is looking into the future and saying, ‘Where can I win the most races and have the most success?’  I was honored at the people who I got to speak with and I just feel like for me personally this is where I want to be for the near future and we got it done.  It’s good.  I’m real happy about it.  It’s a huge relief.  It really wasn’t that painful.  Geoff Smith and I get along really well and we just pretty much sat down and he’s really easy for me to deal with.  It took us about a week-and-a-half of going back and forth with just little things and I feel like the luckiest guy in the world for the contract I got.” 

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO NEGOTIATE THIS YOURSELF – WITHOUT AN AGENT?  “It’s really neat.  If I was dealing with someone that I didn’t trust or that I felt like I couldn’t just kind of air everything out with, then I’d probably have to have an agent, but dealing with Geoff from day one has been very easy at Roush for me, so it was really pretty simple.  Besides, I feel like I know what I need more than anyone else.  I know what I want to make me happy and this is cool.  I’m very excited about being involved with Ford, too, because from what I understand about their corporate culture right now, they’re on their way up and it’s gonna be good here so I want to be a part of that.  I want to help out.” 

WHAT IS IT ABOUT ROUSH THAT’S WHAT YOU WANTED?  “There are a few things.  Robbie Reiser running the place, that’s a big deal for me.  More and more I’m understanding how important that is.  Things we’ve been doing with this car of tomorrow to make it better, I feel like it’s very efficient how everyone is working and it’s making the cars faster, and I feel like our engine program has a lot in the near future that’s gonna be great.  Plus, my pit crew, I’ve struggled since I’ve been here with changing people and having different pit crew guys, and I feel like finally with Robbie managing that I’ve got a group of guys that are going to be really good over the next three years.  I kind of know everything and where it’s headed.  We’re winning right now and I think it’s gonna be better, so that kind of made it easy for me.” 

HOW MANY YEARS?  “I’ll just say it’s multi-year.” 

LONG-TERM?  “A week is a long time around here (laughing).  It’s a great contract.  It’s a dream contract for me and I’m really excited about it.”