Edwards hopes crew changes pay off

This weekend at Phoenix Edwards will have a new tyre changer on his crew as his Roush Fenway team hopes to resolve the issues that hampered not only Edwards' race at Texas, but also those of his team-mates Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle, who faced similar problems with loose lug nuts during stops.

Edwards' team actually has two crew members working in new positions this weekend, as a new front tyre changer, who has been filling in for an injured crewman, has been switched from working on the rear tyres.

The Roush Fenway racer hopes the changes have an immediate effect, as he says he would have preferred them to be made in a race where pitstops are not as crucial as they are at Phoenix.

"I hope that our new tyre changer does well," Edwards said. "I wish we were going to Talladega first and not here because it's going to be imperative to have great pitstops and it could be pivotal if you have a bad one.

"I wish we weren't starting him right here at Phoenix, but you never know, he might perform very, very well."

Edwards believes he has already lost a handful of Sprint Cup races due to problems during pitstops and hopes to see the end of that soon. Even last week at Nashville during the Nationwide Series race, pit-related issues hampered him again.

However the 29-year-old recognises the efforts his team is making to correct those problems.

"The fact is that we can all say 'woulda, shoulda, coulda' or whatever, but there are like five to eight races over my career in Cup that I feel like we would have won if it weren't for trouble that we had on pit road. That's a lot of races," Edwards said.

"I can only imagine that guys just love it when we have yellow flags because they know they can pass me on pit road, so it's just very frustrating. The crazy thing is I talk to (general manager) Robbie Reiser about it and he's doing everything he can. He threw up his hands and said, 'Carl, I've never seen a situation like this where if it's not one thing it's another.'

"If it's not someone having a bad day, it's an injury. It's not like there's just one thing we can say, 'Alright, we're going to change this and now we'll be great'. It's just one of those circumstances and I hope that we can get all of this out of the way and be good in the chase and be good in the future because this sport is becoming so competitive you have to have all parts of it working well."

Edwards currently ranks eighth in the standings as the best of the Roush Fenway stable.