Story by: Langley Austin ~ [email protected]
Hampton, VA(May 24, 2012) — On Saturday night, CE Falk III picked up twin wins at Langley Speedway before getting disqualified from both of them later on the same night. Greg Edwards, a bitter enemy of Falk’s picked up the two victories after he had earlier placed second to Falk in both races, but soon after news began to leak out of the Hampton, VA track, a firestorm began.
Just to recap the how things went down, it was pretty much like this ….
1 – Falk wins both races
2 – Falk gets disqualified from both races
3 – Edwards inherits both wins
4 – Falk talks about not returning to Langley
5 – Langley Speedway reinstates One Win due to Loophole in Speedway Policy
6 – Edwards has 2nd and 1st place finish for the night, Grabs & Points Lead
7 – Falk 90% sure he’ll return to Langley Speedway
7 – Fans, Drivers Question Decision, Integrity of Track Management
8 – Both drivers and Track Get Ready to Battle Once Again
That’s pretty much where we are, just two days before the duo will once again headline twin races at Langley Speedway. The topic has been a heated debate on Facebook, messageboards and around the water cooler in offices all around the Hampton, VA area. While most of the focus has been on CE Falk and whether he would return, not many people have mentioned Edwards and how he’s dealing with the controversial week that was at Langley Speedway.
Edwards, a supporter of Langley Speedway for years was caught in a mess, one that really had nothing to do with him, but simply a matter of him being the guy who finished second to Falk. Given the questionable circumstances in which things went down at Langley this past week and given the fact that he’s not Falk’s biggest fan, it would be easy for Edwards himself to be upset and claiming that he won’t return to the track.
But, he’s not …… Instead the veteran racer is just continuing to do what he does every week and that is to spend as much time as possible with his team of all volunteers, getting ready to take on Falk and trying desperately to beat him. When asked about the whole situation, Edwards says he’s confused, not upset.
“I don’t know. I’m a little confused,” said Edwards in a phone conversation Thursday morning. “Most tracks consider it an event(referring to the twin races). In fact my crew chief asked after the first race and he was told that all tech would be done after the second race.”
Edwards says that he didn’t know the Langley Speedway policy about twin races, which according to the reversal of their decision on the first race was that each race stood by itself, but Edwards does understand the decision by track management.
“In all honesty, there’s a good rivalry going on out here. It’s selling seats and getting the track a lot of exposure and they didn’t want to see it go away. It was a business decision, it’s good for them.”
Despite the fact that he feels the decision might be a business decision to keep Falk racing at Langley Speedway, he says that he didn’t know for sure what the tracks policy is and has never seen it written down. He said that he accepts it and still supports Langley Speedway.
“I don’t make the rules, I just race there and I’m not going to bad mouth the track. I have supported the track for many years and still do. I appreciate Bill(Mullis) stepping up as an owner, when we needed one and I think he’s done a great job with the track over the years. But, because I support them, doesn’t mean I have to agree with every call they make.”
And, contrary to what fans might believe, Edwards says that racers don’t like to get wins with other drivers getting disqualified.
“I want to get my photo taken and go to victory lane,” continued Edwards. “I don’t like to see guys get disqualified and I don’t like that CE(Falk) was DQ’ed. This is nothing you celebrate, you just go “Oh, OK” and leave it at that. It’s not fun.”
Sometimes incidents that happen like the one this past weekend will make a driver or team dig a little harder, but Edwards says that he can’t go any harder.
“I don’t know if I can go any harder, we’re digging with everything we can every week. We all have jobs and we all work on the car in the evenings after work and do all we can. It’s tough racing someone who has the luxury of being able to go and test more often and having a paid crew and all the things that we don’t have, but we don’t focus on that, we just do what we can do.”
Edwards also thinks that he and his team are a lot closer than it might appear to being able to beat Falk and his team week in and week out.
“I think we’re there,” said Edwards. We were almost equal with him last week in the first race and if not for the long red flag in the second race, I think we might have won that one anyways. Just a small shock change or me getting better as a driver on the restarts and not letting him pass me or get away from me would help too. We’re really close, we had the first one won until he wrecked me.”
With the point lead in hand heading into this weekends races, Edwards says that this past week is behind him and he’s focused on going racing again.
“Like I said, we’re close and I don’t want to think about last week again. It doesn’t matter and we can’t change it, but this week we’ve got two chances to get in victory lane. We’re running for this title, so we’ve got to start winning our share of races.”
Edwards character through all of this shows one thing …. he’s a racer, he just wants to race. There’s no crying, no questions of integrity for the track management, there’s no threats of leaving Langley Speedway …. nothing. He’s just going back there to race and hopefully for him, to beat his bitter rival and there’s no doubt that the fans will be the ones who win in the end.
