Let me start off by saying I'm a Brad Keselowski fan. When Carl hit Brad in Atlanta, I was in a bit of a haze coming off a nap and thought I was dreaming and couldn't believe what happened. When I finally realized what really did happen, I was in shock. How could Carl Edwards, the sweetheart of NASCAR who just became a dad, do such a horrible thing? After rationalizing the action versus what happened (we all know it wasn't his intent to make Brad's car fly...), and looking back at his past actions and that racing will always have an element of payback, I got over it – sort of.
But Carl Edwards has a sentimental value in my family. And since this is a website by women and somewhat for women, I feel I can share my story with you.
I was already a NASCAR fan when I was living in Michigan when the August 2008 race was coming up. My mom, not much of a fan, wanted to visit for her birthday, which happened to be the weekend of the race. I told her she could either come to the race with me or come a different weekend. She said she was interested in experiencing a race and we went all out, booking a travel package with RaceTravel, staying in a hotel with other fans and getting garage passes.
At this time, she hadn't picked a driver but I was a Dale Jr. and Brad fan, decked out from head to toe. She didn't even have a smile on her face when we got to the track. But that all changed the moment we stepped out of car in the parking lot. The tailgating, the camaraderie, the different festivities in the fairgrounds … she loved it all. She bought a plain Michigan International Speedway shirt to not “brand” herself and wore a Bon Jovi hat.
We went into the garage, a first for the both of us. We saw all the haulers and drivers walked by us here and there. Then a driver walked towards us who didn't have much of a crowd around him. My mom asked who he was and I told her it was Carl Edwards. She said “he looks nice, I want his autograph.” So she went up to him and asked for an autograph. He said “sure, how are ya doin?” She felt like a rock star. At the end of our garage visit, she picked him as her driver. When we took our seats in the stands to watch the Nationwide race, she opened the program and found out they shared the same birthday. She said it was meant to be that he became her favorite.
He went on to win the race and do his back flip in front of us. Thanks to our passes and Michigan's rules, we were allowed in to Victory Lane to celebrate with my mom's new favorite driver. We drove back to the hotel and she couldn't stop talking about how much fun she had that day and how excited she was for the Cup race the next day. She hit up the Carl souvenir hauler and decked herself out in his then-sponsor Office Depot gear. Again we took our seats and watched Carl win the Sprint Cup race. My mom cheered as loud as she could. She left that weekend a changed woman – she was a NASCAR fan. More importantly, she was a Carl Edwards fan.
A few weeks later, I received a call that my mom had been rushed to the hospital back home and they didn't know what was wrong. I immediately flew back and would find out she had a brain tumor. It had been there for a while but went undiagnosed. She spent 16 long days in the hospital, going from floor to floor, different ICUs and in and out of consciousness and eventually had the tumor removed (it was benign, thank goodness). When she was awake, her one demand was the TV in her room carried the NASCAR races. She watched two races while in the hospital – one while in the ICU and one while in rehab.
Watching a NASCAR race while in the ICU is like having to watch it in the library. And what race did we get to watch there? Talladega Fall 08 – yes, the one with the Tony Stewart vs. Regan Smith ending. At this point, my mom's heart had been effected by the tumor and she couldn't really focus so I sat next to her and would tell her what was happening. I was like her private DW! In rehab, her roommate was a NASCAR fan and they both put on their TVs and felt like they had surround sound. At this point, she had already had the tumor removed and was going through some tough rehab days so the race kept her going.
She was finally released and I moved back home. Then was allowed to go back to work, during the offseason. One day, a few weeks after she went back, a package arrived for her from Roush Fenway Racing. It was a personalized autograph from Carl saying “To Fern, Feel Better, Thanks for being a fan, Carl Edwards.” See, what none of us knew was that when my mom was sick, my dad had written RFR about her situation and asked for a phone call. Obviously, they were in the heat of the Chase and couldn't do that, but the letter was enough. I had it framed for her as a reminder of what she lived through.
When the Vegas race rolled around in the beginning of 2009, she had managed to break her foot but that didn't keep her from running around the garage. She had a special moment with Carl in the garage but what really made her happy was getting to have a conversation with him right before the Nationwide race and him remembering her as being his “birthday twin.” (That's where the above picture comes from.) She said if she died that day, she had done everything she wanted. She doesn't even remember that race (honestly, neither do I...) because all she could think about was having met Carl.
On her next birthday, one year after she had visited me in Michigan, we had a surprise NASCAR-themed party, including a life-size cutout of Carl (he had a birthday hat for himself, too!), fake pit passes, and a cake with the picture of her and Carl on it, which she ate in her own “Victory Lane.” And as my surprise to her was a memorabilia piece from his MIS 08 win (one of those you can buy on nascar.com that include a piece of the tire). It not only a reminder of the race we shared, but it reminded her of the fact that she survived the year.
So I might get mad at Carl for hitting my favorite driver, but I can never be mad at him for giving my mom the strength to carry on during the hardest fight of her life. It sounds cheesy, but my mom's love for NASCAR – and her favorite driver – truly got her through that dark period of time. In the hospital, while recovering, and any bad day she still has … she looks at the picture of her and Carl or thinks back to that first day in the garage, and she is thankful for every day she has.
When I asked my mom if she was mad at Carl for hitting Brad last week, she said “I can't. I just can't.”
I want to dedicate this post to my mom, the strongest person I know.
Photo courtesy of Farrah Kaye.
The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not reflect those of this site or its other contributors.
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