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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Bristol Braces For Feuds A-Plenty
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Bristol Motor Speedway is where laps and tempers are short...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted March 19, 2010   Bristol, TN
Carl Edwards, driver of the #99 Scotts Ford, sits in his car prior to practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Food City 500. (Photo: Getty Images)
Carl Edwards could be forgiven for feeling like he was being bounced between two emotional sides Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Outside the track, in the driver motorhome area, slept his weeks-old baby, Annie. She looks like her father, family members say, and, for a small baby, she’s remarkably calm and relatively quiet, very unlike her dad at the same age.

Inside the track, in the middle of the garage area, ground zero for What Might Happen this weekend at NASCAR’s most famous short track, a sense of tension surrounded the No. 99 team hauler as teammates and family waited for Edwards to hop into his car for Friday practice.

Everybody, it seemed, was looking at Edwards and wondering what he might do next. He is serving the first of three weekends on NASCAR probation after his payback slam of Brad Keselowski at Atlanta, an incident that will be a matter of intense discussion Saturday as NASCAR officials meet with the two drivers at the track.

Before that meeting, before practice, before he had time to even contemplate lunch Friday, Edwards was under fire again, this time from no less an instigator than Kevin Harvick. Earlier in the week, Harvick, who won’t be going to any barbecues with Edwards any time soon, called him “fake” and explained that Friday by pointing out that Edwards can’t be “the nice guy, the bad guy and the bully.”

Edwards, responding to Harvick’s latest, called Harvick a “bad person” and “cowardly.”

Of course, there is a history here. After batting around accusations produced by on-track incidents two years ago, Edwards and Harvick engaged in a brief tussle in the garage area at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Edwards wrapping a hand around Harvick’s neck before the two were separated.

It perhaps was surprising, then, that nobody was hit in Friday’s opening 90-minute practice. Sunday’s race? All bets are off.

“We’re at Bristol. Anything can happen here,” said Clint Bowyer. “As luck would have it, I guarantee that they’ll (Edwards and Keselowski) be side by side, probably starting the race. It’s just the way it is.”

Jeff Burton said he expects Keselowski and Edwards to understand “that they are not in charge, that NASCAR is, and if they continue NASCAR will remind them in a way they won’t soon forget that they are in charge. I think it will be demanded of them to behave in a certain fashion and find a way to work together. Race hard, but work together.

“There has to be a limit that we cross and NASCAR steps in and says we are not going to put up with that, that is across the limit and we’re not putting up with it. But they can’t make every call. … I believe the sport is self-policing, and I believe there is a catastrophic – and I am overusing that word – policy, and that is when NASCAR steps in. … Prior to that, it needs to be left up to us.”

Burton said drivers learn lessons on the track from veterans. His big one, he said, came courtesy of retired Late Model short-track specialist Jack Ingram.

“I went down there (after an on-track incident) and ran my little mouth, and he let me know real quick that wasn’t going to be tolerated,” Burton said. “I didn’t go running to NASCAR, although I wanted to. I wanted to go running to my Mama. … He physically picked me up off the racetrack. I was behind his trailer. He literally had my feet off the ground. His son said, ‘Daddy, put Jeff down. He’s a good boy.’ ” That was like music to my ears, man. … It was an eye-opening experience for me.”

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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