A little access goes a long way for Edwards

FINISH BETTER than 19th? How about just beating the rain?

FOUR DAYS with NASCAR driver Carl Edwards so far, and as you might imagine, one of us needs a break.

I hate to do it, leaving the noise, the numbing thrill that is a bunch of cars going in circles for hours in Fontana and Edwards’ offer to cruise around the speedway with him at 180 mph, but I’m outta here before the end of Saturday’s NASCAR day to hear Billy Joel perform at the Honda Center.

I figure it’s going to be incredibly difficult to listen to “An Innocent Man” and “Uptown Girl” while all the time worrying how Edwards is doing in the Nationwide 300, but I’m wrong. I never give him a thought, and as it turns out, the race gets postponed because of rain.

Maybe if Edwards & Co. beat the rain today, and make sure this NASCAR weekend isn’t carried over to Monday, he’ll be my hero again.

When I left him Saturday it was just beginning to rain, Edwards already turning in the five fastest laps in Auto Club 500 practice runs, and I hope he’s not superstitious, wins, and says I have to go with him to the next race.

He finishes first in the Auto Club 500, he says he will do his back flip and give the trophy to the kids on the cancer ward at Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA. I meet Salma Hayek before I’m married 35 years ago, and we’re together today.

But Edwards insists he really is going to try to win the big race, “the little engine that could,” you know, but the poke finished 19th at Daytona a week ago and now they’ve got his car sitting in the last garage here -- right next to the port-a-potties.

Robert Walker, the king of bookmakers in Las Vegas for MGM Mirage who obviously doesn’t have much to do, posts odds on who will win this merry-go-round.

He’s got Dale Earnhardt Jr. at 4-1, Jeff Gordon 5-1 and Jimmie Johnson 6-1, making him no different than Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who comes here Friday, making a point to stop by the Gordon and Johnson garages.

He never makes it to Edwards’ garage, even though you would think sooner or later the governor would have to go.

NASCAR SPENDS hours and hours inspecting cars, measuring every little detail, and yet when it comes to counting the fans in the stands, a NASCAR public-relations release calls it an “estimated crowd of 37,000,” off by only 20,000.

It’s difficult to say why anyone would be interested in this weekend’s expensive game of dodge the raindrops. Even one of the speedway’s PR types, Leddy Venegas, sounded befuddled and put out when asked why folks pay an additional $55 for a pit pass, which is good only when the cars aren’t running?

“You tell me,” she says, and now there’s a marketing campaign: “You tell me why you’re willing to get ripped off.”

It seems to make a difference, though, if you get the chance to spend time with someone sitting under a helmet. Four days into this, and I might even find myself pulling for the poke driving No. 99. After all, somebody should.

But from what I can tell, most folks never get close to these guys, each of them looking like a race walker while trying to evade the unwashed. And that’s inside the restricted garage area, where the only folks who might pester them are either the media, who are trained to stay away unless a news conference is called, or sponsors, who pay for racing.

One of them has a publicist nicknamed “Dr. No,” whose job is to make sure no one gets to his client.

Friday many of the drivers are sitting in their cars waiting for the track to dry. “That way they don’t have to talk to people,” Edwards explains. “And besides, the cars are comfortable.”

It probably is a grind, team members and drivers thrown together under intense circumstances for 36 races, and every one of them needing an occasional break. But this is only week two, and in a place still trying to convince folks it has something to offer.

“There was a time in my life when I was always alone, towing my own car to the track and doing what I could,” Edwards says, his calendar these days now packed, and what happens when he finally wins a NASCAR championship?

“It’s tough to get time now, and when I do, I look forward to getting home to spend time with my girlfriend,” he says, obviously helmet over racing boots for Kate after listening to him prattle on the last four days about her.

But Edwards is also a lot smarter than he was four days ago, aware now of his audience, and so he adds, “Now please don’t add a punch line.”

EDWARDS CANNOT be any more obliging, and the sport might be better off if he lives up to potential. But from the stands, a bunch of cars going zoom on a two-mile oval -- here they come and there they go -- almost makes hockey more appealing.

That’s why such emphasis is put on the drivers, who get to walk around in cool-looking uniforms, and apparently think they really are. You’d know what I mean if you saw Jeff Gordon walk by.

As it is, it’s kind of an unstated rule here, those covering this sport taking out fawning licenses before asking questions, and then falling all over themselves when one of these walking billboards consents to an interview.

One of the fawning yaks, for example, asks, “How important is it for you to be a role model to so many others across this country?” posing the question to Tony Stewart, who means so much to the kids across the country aspiring to be angry jerks.

Edwards, meanwhile, is taking shot after shot from Page 2 with a grin, and opening himself up for more with complete access, telling his trainer to fetch his racing suit and underwear, “and please make sure you bring several pairs of underwear because some guys on the team are really big, and I’m not.”

Sometimes it really is best not to add a punch line.

T.J. Simers can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.