cool nascar story

[mschn99]

thought some of you nascar fans might want to know what kind of kid Carl Edwards is..........

ELEPHANT MEMORY EDWARDS

Say this about Carl Edwards -- he has the memory of an elephant.

A year ago, Zachary Winkle, of Eolia, Mo., and his father had pit passes at Kansas Speedway, courtesy of friends related to driver Mike Wallace. After signing a couple of hats, Edwards told 8-year-old Zachary, who is confined to a wheelchair because of muscular dystrophy, he'd give him the trophy if he won the race.

Edwards didn't, and that was that. Or so 8-year-old Zachary thought.

Two weeks ago at Gateway International Speedway in Madison, Ill., Edwards overtook Denny Hamlin with nine laps left and held on to win the Busch Silver Celebration 250.

Edwards knew Zachary was at the track because he saw him during practice and told him not to forget the promise. And even though it was the first victory for Edwards at Gateway, which he considers his home track, he kept his word, presenting the trophy to Zachary in Victory Lane.

``I'd always seen him at the races, and he seemed like a really nice kid,'' said Edwards, a spokesman for The Dream Factory, a charity for critically and chronically ill children that sent the Winkles to Disney World in 2001.