Carl Edwards, in town for the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Gateway International Raceway Saturday night, made his annual bike ride from his hometown of Columbia, Mo. to Madison this week.

At the beginning of the 200-mile trek, Edwards raised money for good friend Sam Russell, who is paralyzed from the waist down because of a bicycling accident in June 2007. Near the end of the ride along the Katy Trail, one of Edwards’ friends found a set of car keys somebody had dropped. On the set of keys was a YMCA tag with a scanner code.

When Edwards and his friends reached Maryland Heights, Edwards dropped the keys off at the Edward Jones YMCA center hoping the employees would find the owner.

“I just darted in there and they ran it through the scanner and they said they would get his keys back,” Edwards recalled. “One of the car keys was broke in half. I don’t know he may have had a bad day and had just thrown them down. He might not have wanted them back. I hope he gets his keys.”

Edwards said he wasn’t looking for a YMCA but just happened upon the Jones facility.

“It was funny walking in there in my helmet and sunglasses…they guy was just nonchalant and just shook my hand and said ‘hey I’m a big fan.’ That was pretty funny,” he said.

Also along the way, Edwards and his group stopped at a swimming pool where Edwards did his best imitation of an Olympic gold-medal winning diver. Unfortunately for Edwards he failed to connect on his gainers.

“Me and this other kid tried to do gainers and we just couldn’t do ‘em,” Edwards said. “But we had a really good time.”