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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Drivers Need To Speak Up
NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers are called upon to clear the air...
Rick Minter  | http://www.RacinToday.com  |  Posted March 08, 2010   Hampton, GA
The wrecked #12 Penske Dodge, driven by Brad Keselowski, sits in the garage after an incident on tack during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)

For the second time in less than a year, I’ve sat in a press box at a high-speed NASCAR track and watched a car be spun around, lift off the ground, turn upside down and slam into a retaining wall and catchfence.

At Talladega Superspeedway last year, it was Carl Edwards flying into the fence, nearly windshield first, with Brad Keselowski, the driver he’d just tangled with, going on to win the race. At Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday it was Keselowski flying upside down, almost head first into the wall, after contact, apparently intentional, from Edwards.

This time it wasn’t for the win. Edwards was 156 laps down and from all indications delivering payback for an earlier incident or incidents between the two of them.

The crashes may look exciting on TV, but in person, they’re sickening.

At Talladega, fellow reporter Monte Dutton and I left our seats in the press box and went to the crash scene below where we found a handful of battered and bruised fans who looked like they’d just lost a bar room brawl. Up at the top of the stands, a young lady was lying flat on her back on a stretcher attached to a rescue vehicle. She had bled enough from her jaw to turn a starched white towel nearly completely red.

NASCAR and track officials went out of their way to label the injuries “minor.”

At Atlanta, Keselowski’s car stayed out of the spectator area. Mercifully there were no injuries.

If there’s an upside to the crash at Atlanta it’s that it raised questions about the “Have at it, boys” approach to racing that NASCAR officials announced earlier this year.

Drivers and series officials spent most of the post-race news conference time answering questions about just how much wrecking is acceptable in the “Have at it, boys” era.

Is there a difference, from an enforcement standpoint, in wrecking someone at Martinsville at 90 miles per hour and putting them in the fence at Atlanta at 200? What kind of punishment, if any, can drivers expect? Will the sport continue to cater to a segment of the fan base – hopefully a small one – that shows up at the track or turns on the TV just to see bone-jarring, potentially deadly wrecks?

What all this calls for is some leadership from the garage – not NASCAR officials or TV commentators or even members of the press but veteran drivers like Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton and Dale Earnhardt Jr.


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Rick Minter

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