Edwards seems to have the drive to succeed

Who knows, maybe he’ll be faster and finish 18th here. Whoop-de-doo.

So here I am, riding shotgun with a NASCAR driver for the next five days, it’s 7:30 in the morning, and maybe it makes sense if it’s Ryan Newman, winner of Daytona, but I’m stuck with the poke who finished 19th.

Carl Edwards is driving a Ford Escape. It’s a rental car, it’s raining, and he’s trying to bump the car just ahead of us. You know, just to say hello to the publicist who is leading us to Irwindale Speedway to shoot a commercial.

I understand now why he says I should sit up front. “That’s where the air bag is,” he says as he turns onto the Irwindale track, heavy foot on the gas, the wall right there. I wonder if he took out the additional insurance when he rented the car?

“The closer to the wall the less the impact when we hit it,” he says. When we hit it?

Thank heavens he’s not as fast as Newman, but around we go until he takes a dramatic left turn, slamming on the brakes -- emergency brake and all, the car spinning on the wet track and undoubtedly about to flip. Escape is all I can think about, the car aptly named.

There’s a lunar eclipse tonight, and he says something about taking the Cessna Citation he personally pilots from race to race up above the clouds to see it. He will be going alone.

NASCAR COMES to the California Speedway this weekend, and Edwards will be driving No. 99, probably because he was a high school band member.

“But the flag girls were awesome,” Edwards says.

The former drummer will drive a race car Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but now he’s training as if it really matters what shape he’s in.

“With NASCAR the way it is,” he says, “they might let people come over and punch me. I’ve got to be ready.”

I forgot Tony Stewart was going to be here.

Edwards lifts at 6:30 in the morning, runs the bleachers at noon, and regularly appears on magazine covers -- with his shirt off.

“I checked out the picture online and there were four comments with it,” he says. “Three girls said the pictures were hot. The fourth wrote, ‘He’s pretty, but that face.’ I don’t think I’ll be reading those anymore.”

There’s a striking facial resemblance to a young John Elway, but Elway was much buffer. Keep lifting, good buddy.

“You get in one of these cars,” Edwards says, “it’s really hot, you’re driving for four hours, you lose your will to compete and you can’t wait for the race to be over. You don’t have that kill mode at the end of a race, so I think this really makes a difference.”

His trainer, Dean Golich, who has worked with really good athletes such as Lance Armstrong, takes on Edwards in a race to the top of the bleachers. One of them runs it in 11.5 seconds, the other in 12.7, and just like with race cars, Edwards needs some tweaking.

Golich is wearing a bright orange Ferrari cap rather than anything suggesting an affiliation to No. 99.

“You can’t compare some guy who has never won a championship to somebody like [Ferrari’s] Michael Schumacher who has won seven,” he says -- just loud enough so Edwards hears.

It works. Edwards is firing back, muttering something about Schumacher, albeit in good humor. “I’m a little competitive,” he says, which draws a laugh from Golich, who adds, “Like Shaquille O’Neal is a little tall.”

IT HAS already been a long week, Edwards flying himself from Daytona to Nashville and home to Missouri to be honored by the state senate. They are going to name a street after him, and it will be interesting to see what the posted speed limit is.

On Tuesday, he flew to Colorado to pick up his trainer, the trip undoubtedly taking a little longer than it would’ve had Schumacher been the pilot, before finally arriving in Ontario.

The 40-foot motor home that follows him to the track each week was involved in a wreck leaving Daytona, so Edwards is now looking for a place to stay. We’ve been saving a room for the son-in-law, but see no reason why.

“I’m hoping to find a little Airstream trailer -- wouldn’t it be cool to pull into the Speedway with everyone else arriving in their big motor homes?” he says, and sometimes he looks at things differently than anyone else. “Maybe I’ll take off two of the hubcaps.”

Later in the day, Camping World comes to the rescue, probably waiting that long to see if Newman needed a motor home before taking care of Edwards.

EDWARDS, KNOWN best for doing a back flip after a win -- and they tell me that has actually happened before -- supported himself for a while working as a substitute teacher.

“You know the three things they say about math,” he says. “You can either do it or not.”

He finds that funny, but finds nothing strange about sleeping in his car a few years back and passing out business cards to get work.

“You can live in a car cheap,” he says. “Eight-dollar showers at truck stops help.”

Right now he’s sitting in a stationary car on pit row in the goofy make-believe world of commercials, with a Japanese garden and koi pond in the passenger seat. Two men dressed in Japanese garb are leaning in the window and in the crowd -- headband and all -- is the Karate Kid, Ralph Macchio.

Edwards has no lines, and is not asked to act. He makes a great mannequin. He falls asleep in his car -- I don’t think Mr. Miyagi would approve.

There are countless folks tugging him in different directions all day, and he never applies the brakes. “Whatever you need,” he says repeatedly, and he has obviously been raised right.

He also does a spot for something called, “Trash Talk,” reading copy that mentions the winner’s circle, stumbling over the words as if it’s a foreign land he has never heard of before.

“At least I didn’t stain my shorts while riding in a Ford Escape,” he says.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.