Brad vs. Carl: Where do you stand? (Yahoo! Sports)
March 9, 2010
div.mailsubhead { font-size: 1.4em; font-weight:bold; margin-top:0.6em; margin-bottom:.5em;}hr { align:center; width: 20%; margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; }Predictably, you all came strong with your opinions on Sunday’s big news. Like a lot of you, I also was shocked that “Avatar” didn’t win the Oscar for Best Sound Editing.
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Up in the air
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Looks like NASCAR’s in a box now. They said that drivers would police themselves. Well, Carl Edwards just did. Granted, the end result was a flying crash, but what if Brad’s (Keselowski) car had stayed on four wheels and just spun out? Then we’re talking about payback and nobody’s calling for Carl’s head. That’s the problem. If they can hit and wreck each other, you can’t really talk about the way the wreck happens.
For what it’s worth, Carl hit him in the straightaway (not in a turn) and put him into the SAFER barrier. If I’m going to punish him for anything, it’s for going the wrong way down pit lane.
My verdict? A fine for that (stupid move) and “double-secret probation” for the rest of the year for dumping Keselowski. Not so much because I’m a huge Edwards fan but because that’s the boundary that NASCAR set.
And at the drivers’ meeting in Bristol two weeks from now? “Gentlemen, now you know where the line is. We don’t want anybody else over it, or they’re going to be staying at home for a while.”
Josh TurielSalem, Mass.
You nailed it, Josh. NASCAR likes to leave its rules open to their own interpretation, which normally gives them some wriggle room. In this case, the wriggle room is the problem. NASCAR didn’t define what “have at it” is supposed to mean, so how can they punish Edwards for clearly having at it? Was he not just following orders?
Suspend Edwards for at least five races … no place in NASCAR for that childish behavior on a race track at 180-plus mph. If he needed payback, why not wait 14 days until Bristol.
Wondering how many murderers are sitting in jail for the excuse: “Yeah, I hit him, but I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
Gravity saved lives and/or serious injuries to fans at Atlanta raceway by bringing down Keselowski’s car before it sailed over the fence.
Edwards, you ought to be ashamed of your actions.
Jed D. OlveyBluffton, Ind.
Okay, here’s where I pull on the reins a bit. I know the kneejerk response is to yank Edwards aside, toss him in jail and throw away the key. But before we go all Dr. Laura on him, let’s consider the facts:
Fact 1: Within just the last year, Keselowski has caused more crashes than malware. Yahoo! Sports blogger Jay Busbee has documented at least eight incidents involving Keselowski.
Fact 2: At least two of those incidents involved Edwards, one of which sent him flying through the air.
Fact 3: Keselowski wrecked Edwards’ day early in Sunday’s race.
Now, I know a lot of you are screaming, “BUT KESELOWSKI DIDN’T DO IT INTENTIONALLY,” and you’re right. But just because you didn’t do something intentionally doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.
When I’m driving on the highway and I’ve got some idiot cutting me off at 75 mph after making a four-lane change, I’m ticked. He just put me in danger for no other reason than his own impatience. And if we wreck, you better believe I’m going to let him know it was his fault EVEN if he didn’t mean for it to happen.
Just like there are rules on the highway, there are rules on the racetrack, albeit unwritten ones. While most drivers follow them, Keselowski acts like he’s above them all.
The fact is, his aggressive driving style has directly ended a lot of races for a lot of drivers and cost team owners hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in crumpled-up race cars.
All of this had to be going through Edwards’ mind Sunday. Putting myself in his shoes, if I’m seeing Keselowski through my windshield, running for a top-10 finish while I’m 100-plus laps down thanks to him, I’m ticked. I’m thinking to myself, “There’s no way this guy deserves a top 10, not after what he did to me.”
And so he sent the message that a lot of people inside the Cup garage have wanted to deliver.
One last point: I think you have to separate the action from the result. What Edwards did was not part of a pattern of bad behavior, so let’s not respond by treating it as though it’s an epidemic that must be dealt with swiftly and firmly in order to send some kind of message. Any messages that need to be sent already have been: Edwards clearly knows not to do that again, and Keselowski (hopefully) has gotten the hint that his way of doing business has consequences.
Hey Jay – I’ve been reading user comments all over the place about how Carl Edwards lost all these fans by seeking retribution on Keselowski. I think what a lot of fans are missing (besides the excitement that comes from a budding feud), is that not only did Edwards have 90 minutes to stew over what had happened, he had a fast car, and that essentially knocked him out of the race.
The thing that frustrates me the most about it, though, is that multiple legends have bumped and banged, and when push came to shove, occasionally lost their cool and made a mistake like Edwards. Who can forget Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s bump ‘n run on Terry Labonte in the 1999 Bristol night race: “I didn’t mean to wreck him, I just meant to rattle his cage.” Where was the outpour over that? Or even more recently, Dale Jr.’s 2009 Daytona 500 wreck, where he was “running for the win.” Why no huge outcry over that?
The point I’m trying to make is that Edwards screwed up, but he admitted to it as soon as he saw what happened. Dock him the 100 points and $100,000, but don’t sit him out for a race based solely on one mistake.
Chris RetzlaffPark City, Kansas
Well, remember Chris, fans did boo Dale Sr. at Bristol, though you do make a good point. Whenever people lament about what Bristol has become since the repaving several years ago, they almost assuredly long for nights like the ’99 race. All this does is point out how fickle we all are. Just like we allow some people to get away with jokes others can’t, we pulverize some drivers for doing the same thing we’ve cheered others for doing.
This and that
Jay, it’s time to go back to single-file restarts on the green-white-checker, and should we call it the green-white-yellow? Is NASCAR so desperate that they have to have a two-lap demolition derby at the end of each race to keep fans buying tickets? And then they tell the drivers “to have at it.” Heck, why not kill two birds with one stone? Take the restrictor plates off at Daytona Talladega and turn them into two giant figure-eight tracks.
Bill M.Franklin, Tenn.
NASCAR just can’t win. They incorporate the green-white-checker finish to assure fans they get to see cars race to the finish line, then they institute double-file restarts to spice of the action, then they tell drivers to police themselves in hopes that that will liven things up, and still some fans complain.
I figure everyone and their idiot brother will weigh in on the Edwards/Keselowski incident(s), so I’ll leave that topic alone for this week. I’ve been complaining that NASCAR needs to overhaul their points system for quite some time, but the Atlanta race proves my point better than any screaming rant ever could.
Matt Kenseth finished second, and he received 170 points because he didn’t lead any laps. Montoya finished third, and with five bonus points for leading the race, he also received 170 points. Kasey Kahne finished fourth, and because he led the most laps in the race, he ALSO received 170 points. In my mind, there is NO way that THREE drivers in ANY race should be awarded the equivalent of second-place points.
I have argued for some time that NASCAR needs to have a larger points differential between finishing positions and a minimum of a 15-point differential between the top 12 finishing positions. That way, if a driver finishes fourth, he doesn’t get third-place points or second-place points, as occurred in this instance.
Mark D. KnightNew Salisbury, Ind.
I hear you barking, brother.
Hi Jay, I’m a fan of your writing. I have two great ideas for helping NASCAR reach out to fans who feel like NASCAR has lost touch with its roots, who don’t like the cookie-cutter mile-and-a-half tracks, and who want drivers to race for wins rather than points.
The first idea is to award a special Chase bonus to the winner of the Daytona 500. It could either be a points bonus awarded at the start of the Chase, or it could be a guaranteed Chase spot to the Daytona winner. As things are now, Daytona is only the 11th most important race of the year, after the first 10 races of the Chase where No. 48 builds the inevitable, insurmountable lead.
The second idea is to replace one mile-and-a-half race during the Chase with a “Heritage 500” race that each year travels to one of the race tracks that the Sprint Cup no longer uses, like Darlington or Rockingham. It could be like hockey’s very successful Winter Classic outdoor game. Thanks for the columns!
Eric LyonSeattle
I appreciate the kind words and your suggestions. I do have a few issues, though. First, the Daytona 500 is too much of a crap-shoot. I’d hate to see that race, of all of them, deliver a spot in the Chase. You could wind up with a driver in your playoff with only one top 10 all season long. How would that look?
And while I do like the idea of a “Heritage 500,” remember that Darlington is still on the Sprint Cup schedule. Don’t put it in the ground yet.
Jay, Is it me or is NASCAR missing out on a great commercial subject right now? A lot of fans are getting fed up with the 48 winning all the time and finishing atop the standings for the past four years. If I was NASCAR, I would play up on this with some playful commercials where the other drivers try to “sabotage” the 48 car in various comedic ways, such as the banana in the tail pipe, pretending to be his crew chief while Knaus is tied up, and so on. Of course, JJ will find someway around all this and still win the race on the commercials, but you gotta figure it is a good storyline for at least a dozen commercials.
Chris BrownMorristown, Tenn.
The problem, Chris, is that there’s no way anyone’s falling for the banana in the tailpipe.
Last call …
I’ve got a solution to NASCAR’s dilemma over on-track retaliation: I think they ought to build a boxing ring out back of victory lane, and have drivers challenge one another after the race to one, one-minute round with leather fists. If you retaliate on the track, you get parked for a week, but there are no penalties for a post- race boxing match. Tell the drivers where to go after the race to issue a challenge.
T.J.Allen, Texas
Jay Hart is the NASCAR editor for Yahoo! Sports. Send Jay a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
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