Carl Edwards doesn't have a Daytona Duel strategy yet

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Carl Edwards rolls off ninth in today’s first Budweiser Duel qualifying race and he still doesn’t have a plan leading into the Daytona 500.

The new Generation Six Sprint Cup Series cars have proven to be very unstable in the draft, with multicar accidents taking place each time the cars have practiced in the pack. Edwards himself was involved in one of those crashes yesterday, with Ryan Newman and Mark Martin and he still doesn’t know why the cars are so unstable.

Edwards spent most of his morning watching the weather forecast and formulating his plan around it.

“I wish we had a plan but we don’t,” Edwards told SB Nation. “If it’s hot and slick, it could make for brand new conditions. If it looks like a wreck is fixin’ to happen, we’re not going to be afraid to drop back. But it’s a real coin toss on how aggressive we’re going to be. We’ll do what Jimmy Fennig tells us to do.”

While Edwards is keeping a wary eye on changing track conditions, he likes that they’ve been harder to drive thus far.

“I like instability in our race cars,” Edwards said. “My honest opinion, over the past few years, the cars were too reliant on downforce and too low to the ground. That made Goodyear’s job too hard and the drivers’ job too easy.

“I like that our cars are hard to drive and gets us back to having to man-handle the car. It brings us back to set-up and pit strategy. That’s what makes NASCAR great.”

He’ll like it even more if he wins his Duel and sets himself up for a good starting spot in Sunday’s Daytona 500.