Different challenges

it looked like. These guys were just trying to be perfectionists.”

After his senior season wrapped in the spring of 2014, he jumped into a pregraduation internship with Childress Racing.

“What surprised me the most was how dirty you have to get,” he says, laughing. “I mean, I was going back to the dorm and after I showered, my whole shower was black.”

Payne says the gritty side of the job is too much for many former athletes, who are used to being feted. “They all start out sweeping the floor, and it’s their attitude that gets in the way,” he says. “They can’t do it. But Derrell put his head down and did any work that was asked of him.”

When Edwards’ two months were up, Childress offered him a full-time position in the pit department.

Was this really what the former basketball star wanted?

“I thought he’d lost his mind,” says his mother, Christine. “I really thought he was crazy. He’d had a basketball in his hand everywhere he went since he was a little boy.”

Edwards also asked the father of his

Edwards anticipates the question about race before it comes. He can’t ignore the fact he’s a rare black participant in a sport dominated by white faces, so he embraces it.

“I haven’t come across anything really crazy,” he says. “But you can tell when you’re favored by someone or not. People have said little things like, ‘Hey, that boy’s lost.’ That happened to me in Alabama. But I’m trying to leave my legacy, and if that takes making people uncomfortable, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”

His mother,who works as a lab technician at Johns Hopkins Hospital, cried when she heard about the bigoted comment. “I cannot protect my child now,” she thought. But he assured her he could handle it. “Derrell has always stood out in a crowd,” Christine Edwards says. “He has no trouble adjusting to where he is or anybody that he’s around.”

Uncomfortable moments aside, it’s almost eerie how well Edwards’ career has worked out in recent months. He wore the No. 3 for his entire basketball career and on Sunday, he crewed for Dillon’s No. 3 car, made famous by the great Dale Earnhardt. After the race, Dillon’s celebratory spin through the infield grass left a mark that looked like, you guessed it, a large No. 3. Then, after the crew partied into the wee hours, Edwards received a tattoo of a wolf howling at the moon — his official mark as a member of Dillon’s “Wolfpack.”

Payne notes that on Tuesday, while other members of the team were still celebrating, Edwards ground through his regular workout.

“To do this, having never watched a race before he started, it’s phenomenal,” the chaplain says. “It’s that work ethic. He’s just earned respect from everybody.”

Edwards has converted family members and friends into regular NASCAR viewers, but he understands the sport is still foreign to most kids growing up in Baltimore. He hopes his story might clue them in to the vast, wild scene that unfolds each weekend at the races. It’s not the NBA but on its own terms, it’s just as big.

“I’m still in awe,” he says. “I don’t get in awe about a lot of things, but looking up in those stands and seeing them packed, like the other night in Daytona, you get the chills through your body.”

He hopes to bring a Childress car to Baltimore and show it off to the kids in his old neighborhood. He wants his story to open their minds to the possibilities of a wider world.

“It was the NBA guys for me,” he says. “But I’m Derrell Edwards, and I’m doing it in another way. Just because you don’t make it in the NFL or the NBA, it doesn’t mean your life is over. There’s other ways to make it and be successful.”