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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Keselowski, Edwards See Progress
Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski have made contact on and off the track...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted March 20, 2010   Bristol, TN
Carl Edwards (Right) and Brad Keselowski (Left) walk out of the NASCAR hauler at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)
NASCAR officials met with feuding drivers Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski and their team owners for about 40 minutes Saturday morning at Bristol Motor Speedway in an attempt to clear the air prior to Sunday’s Food City 500.

Both drivers ran out of the meeting in NASCAR’s mobile headquarters without talking to a throng of assembled news media members. They were late for a Nationwide Series qualiyfying session that started while they were meeting with NASCAR officials.

Both talked briefly about the meeting later.

Asked if he and Edwards had healed their rift, Keselowski said, “I think so. It sounds like there’s more going on between Kevin (Harvick) and Carl than me and Carl.”

Keselowski referred to the renewal of a feud between Edwards and Harvick. Harvick called Edwards “fake” in a radio interview earlier in the week and criticized him again at BMS Friday. Edwards responded by calling Harvick “a bad person” and “cowardly.”

After his Nationwide qualifying run, Edwards said the morning meeting went well and said the problems that resulted in two on-track incidents with Keselowski at Atlanta Motor Speedway two weeks ago are “behind us. We’re going racing.

“Everything went really well. I think the biggest thing coming out of that meeting is that now, I think, Brad and I understand one another a little better. I think we’re going to be able to just go forward and go racing, and that’s what this is all about. It was really cool to be able to talk with Jack and Roger and Brad all at once. We laughed. We cried. In the end, I think it’s going to be good.”

Edwards responded again to the perception that he has anger issues and a hair-trigger temper.

“I think some people would like that to be the case, but let me put it this way – it’s real easy to stand back and throw stones at someone and make little chirps and say things that make you feel better about yourself, but, in the end, what I said yesterday holds true. The people who know me know that I’m a very fair person. I guess if my biggest fault is standing up for myself, I’ll take it. They can fault me all day for that.”

NASCAR placed Edwards on probation for three races after he punted Keselowski into the air near the end of the Atlanta race.

Participating in the Saturday morning meeting along with the drivers were team owners Jack Roush and Roger Penske.

Roush said Edwards and Keselowski “said things that would indicate that they’re willing to put it behind them and let bygones be bygones, to give one another racing room, and that’s what’s needed. They need to give one another a little extra room for a while.”

Penske said the drivers “agreed they’re going to race hard, fair and give themselves some room on the racetrack so we don't become the poster boys every weekend on what's happening. I said, ‘Hey, at the end of races, if we’re racing for the lead with a lap or two to go, you're going to have to run hard. But try to stay out of each other's way during the race.’ It was a good conversation. They're both good guys. It's great to have an environment where we can sit down.”

He called Keselowski “a terrific talent. I don't tell my drivers to run hard or run soft. I think he knows what he has to do on the racetrack with his peers, and quite honestly, he isn't making any statements about what he's going to do or not do. I think the media has taken some of that and moved it further and made him with a bigger circle around him. What I want him to do is run fair on the racetrack and be competitive. But again, the other drivers have to respect him.”

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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