Edwards latest driver to take a trip into the bizarre

HAMPTON, Ga. -- Carl Edwards stood on the top step of his team transporter leaning on crutches, his right foot protected by a pair of carbon support pieces laced tight inside his racing boot. The two broken bones will require about eight weeks to heal, meaning that the Roush Fenway driver will be dealing with the injury for most of the remaining Cup season. Victory back flips are out of the question for six to eight months. When it came time for Edwards to qualify his Nationwide car, he hobbled out to an EMT cart for a ride to the starting grid.

This is what Frisbee has wrought.

Accidents happen

Carl Edwards is just the latest driver to suffer a freak accident on his off-time. A collection of recent, wacky driver injuries ...

• Frisbee gets best of Edwards
• Biffle slips off boat deck
• Johnson cuts finger at home

"I told him that if he needed help getting around the garage, my motor home driver is available with a golf cart," teammate Greg Biffle said. "I was talking to Matt [Kenseth] and Jamie [McMurray], and I said at least he could say he was playing rugby or football, scaling a mountain, or something. But playing Frisbee? It's fun to joke about, I guess."

Edwards was getting needled more than a cross-stitching cloth Saturday for the reason behind his injury, which occurred when a friend fell on the driver's foot as they were both going after a certain trademarked flying disc. And yet, many of Edwards' contemporaries in the Cup garage have taken the same type of grief themselves, given the number of freak, off-track injuries that have befallen drivers in NASCAR's premier series in recent years. Broken hands, broken wrists, cut hands, cut fingers, broken shoulders, bruised ribs -- maybe it's time for these guys to wear protective suits and HANS devices in their everyday lives.

"You can get hurt doing anything," Edwards said at Atlanta Motor Speedway, site of Sunday night's race. "All the things I've done the last few weeks, the things I do all the time, I never thought I'd break a bone playing Frisbee. I mean, I rode my motorcycle to the university where we were playing Frisbee, so you never know."

While the reason behind Edwards' injury may seem humorous, the damage itself is certainly not. If doctors had put a cast around the broken foot, they wouldn't have been able to remove it when the driver was in the car. So Edwards opted for the carbon support pieces, which go in the sole of his shoe and on top of his foot, and a walking boot when he's out of the vehicle. Still, the harder he mashes down on the accelerator pedal, the more it hurts. He's opting against taking any pain medicine. It's downright bizarre seeing Edwards, likely the most athletic driver in the garage area, getting around awkwardly on crutches. Although he says he plans to run every lap in both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup tours, Kenseth was standing by as a relief driver Friday night.

And then there was the reaction of car owner Jack Roush. "Jack's reaction was something along the lines of, 'You just can't go a day without showing everybody how dumb you are, can you?' That's how Jack is," Edwards said with a sheepish smile. "When I hurt my thumb [in a late model race in 2007], I told him I thought it was going to be all right. He said, 'Damn straight it's going to be all right.' At least he can see the humor in it. He understands we're going to race no matter what. It's just up to me." (Continued)