Kickin' it with Carl: Martinsville edition

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Carl and Kate Edwards recently announced that they are pregnant with their first child. Getty Images/Todd Warshaw

Carl Edwards has agreed to do a biweekly diary Q&A with SI.com this season. In the latest edition, he walks us through a disappointing night at Charlotte and discusses how a rough first half of the Chase has the No. 99 team switching up its championship strategy for the final five weeks. Plus, in the wake of some exciting news he tells us all about his wife's pregnancy, what it feels like to be an expectant father for the first time, and more.

Charlotte was a rough weekend for the team (Carl was a 35th-place car most of the night before dropping an engine and finishing 39th). Can you walk through what happened from the drop of the green through your disappointing finish in the race?

Yeah, we were just off. We missed the setup, and we were just too loose from the very beginning. We worked and worked, tried to get it tightened up and we couldn't. We made a really drastic change [in the race] and then still it wasn't tight enough. So the whole night was a struggle, and then we had a little bit of trouble in the pits and went another lap down. So once you get two laps down, if you don't have a really fast race car, your race is over.

It was the worst performance we've ever had as a team, so we hope we will not have another one of those. And the engine blowing up... at that point, you're just letting me get home earlier. That was the only good part about it; really, it was just insult to injury. There was no way we were coming back from where we were at.

You called the engine a "mercy killing" based on how badly you were running. Was that awkward for your team? I'm sure they felt just as bad as you ...

Yeah, my guys know that they all want to win just as badly as I do. So I don't have to say anything to 'em -- they know. The only good thing about it is that it could have been a run like Matt [Kenseth, who finished second] -- one where you're racing for the win and then the engine blows up. So it could have been a lot worse.

After that DNF, several drivers including Jeff Gordon have accused you of "clutching" the engine in order to just head to the garage and finish off your day. Is that true?

Nah, as much as I would like to do that sometimes I've never done that. And I hope I never will. Those guys work really hard on those engines. If I was going to do something like that, I'd admit it. But I can understand why people do, I can tell you that.

One thing that did stick out to me was how composed you were while your car was running so badly, as opposed to other drivers who lose control on the radio. How difficult is it to keep your frustration from shining through on a night like that?

Yeah, let's just put it this way: I'm glad you have to push a button so people can hear what you're saying, because if it was just every word that came out of your mouth, every thought that came to mind, I would not have seemed so composed. But I think it's important not to lose your cool with your team. They're your team. It's one thing to be angry at a competitor or something like that, but to yell at your guys... it's something I try not to do. I think that's important, especially since they don't yell at me.

Now that you're 336 behind, 10th in points, explain how your in-race strategy changes for the second half of the Chase with the title a bit of a longshot.

Well, Bob and I talked about it: we're just going to go for it. We're going to take risks, be slightly more aggressive, and maybe take some gambles on pit road. Try some things with setups, too, because at this point, to run in the top 10 for the rest of the Chase is not going to get us really anything. So we need to go out and try to win some races, just so we've got some momentum to go into the offseason with.

Mathematically, we can still win a championship, but realistically, we have to go out and try some things and learn.

Does what Matt did on Saturday night (finishing second) give you guys hope you've found something in the Roush organization?

Oh, yeah. If Matt hadn't run like that, the whole night would have been a disaster, and we would have nothing to gain from it, nothing to take from it and look to the future with. But Matt's run, that was cool. I watched the end of that race from my motorhome, and that was pretty amazing. It gives me hope.