Carl Edwards Still Planning On Payback With Kyle Busch

Carl Edwards isn't backing down from his very public plans to get payback on Kyle Busch for their incident at Phoenix last month – even after Busch apologized and said it was unintentional.

"The deal is I am just going to go race how I need to race – it is nothing personal," Edwards said. "That deal at Phoenix cost me 28 points – at least – in my opinion. So, the least he can give up is one spot."

Edwards said he informed Busch "I owed him one" and said Busch "asked for me to give it back to him at the All-Star race," when drivers don't have any points on the line.

"You never know," Edwards said. "Maybe that is how it will go. This is racing, guys."

Of course, Edwards actually had the opportunity to make Busch pay up at Bristol last week. Busch was winning late in the race, and had Edwards on his back bumper.

But Busch pulled away without incident, and Edwards never got close enough in the final laps to make anything happen.

So why didn't Edwards take Busch out when he had a chance?

"It boils down to this: I had my shot to pass him and I couldn't, because I wasn't fast enough," Edwards said. "When things got going, his car was just faster. I couldn't get back to him.

"If I could have got to him with one or two laps to go, then maybe I could have made something happen. I know that is what all the fans wanted to see. Trust me, nobody wanted to see it more than me. I would have loved to be in that position. As it went, I wasn't even in position to consider that."

Edwards said he's thought a lot about Bristol since the race and concluded "I did the best I could." So he'll have to wait until a future date to get payback on Busch.

And if anyone has a problem with that, Edwards doesn't care.

"People can say whatever they want," he said. "I am going to do what I have to do and say whatever I am going to say. That is me."