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NASCAR Nationwide Series
NNS: Edwards Plays ‘Chump And Run’
Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski got into each other again in the NASCAR Nationwide Series Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 at Gateway International Raceway...
Jonathan Ingram  | http://www.RacinToday.com  |  Posted July 19, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Brad Keselowski driver of the #22 Discount Tire Dodge wrecks on the final lap of the NASCAR Nationwide Series Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 at Gateway International Raceway. (Photo: Getty Images)
From the Monday Morning Crew Chief:

It’s gut check time for Carl Edwards.

Fans appreciate a guy who hates to lose. They hate a guy who can’t accept the fact he got beat.

Since Sprint Cup rookie Brad Keselowski beat Edwards at the Talladega in the spring of last year, the Ford driver has seen nothing but the red mist around the younger driver.

Keselowski does push the issue often enough to raise hackles among a variety of veterans. In the Sprint Cup, he’s just this side of sophomore Joey Logano in that department. But unlike Logano, Keselowski, who grew up in a stock car racing family, appears to have a better understanding of the fine line between hard racing and unacceptable racing.

Unlike most veterans, Edwards seems to fail to understand the fine line between payback in kind and deliberate and dangerous cheap shots like the one taken on the front straight at Gateway to win Saturday’s Nationwide Series race. The incident tore up a lot of equipment among the competitors headed for the checkered flag behind him and luckily ended without serious injury.

For those who like to recall intimidation tactics by Dale Earnhardt Sr., the latter would have never let another driver rattle him so badly and so consistently.

Edwards complains that Keselowski keeps putting him in a bad position. If he told that to the drivers who are in NASCAR’s Hall of Fame – or on their way – they might have a good laugh. The sport of stock car racing is all about putting your fellow competitor in a bad enough position that a pass is all but inevitable.

This is the second in what is now a series of dangerous cheap shots versus Keselowski. Edwards’ “chump and run” moves are distinguished by the fact that any driver, any where, on any track, in any series could do the same thing. That’s why it’s gut check time for Edwards. He needs to stop taking pride in turning motor racing into the lowest common denominator.

That’s a long way from being an intimidator.

It’s worth noting that there was calculation by Edwards when he nearly sent Keselowski’s Dodge into the grandstands in Atlanta during the Sprint Cup race in March. It’s not likely he would have done it had his Roush Racing teammate Matt Kenseth been leading, thus forcing a teammate into a green-white-checkered finish.

At Gateway, Edwards knew that in a different series he would not face the same post-race management as in the Sprint Cup, allowing him more leeway despite a second high-speed run-in with Keselowski. He needs to spend more time calculating that stock car racing is not a sport masquerading as a personal vendetta, rather that it’s actually a sport.

Meanwhile, back at the NASCAR Nationwide Series hauler, it’s also gut check time. Too often the management of the understudy series in NASCAR comes off as imitation Sprint Cup. There’s a vague effort to imagine how situations would be handled instead of recognizing that the minor leagues are also about management learning to make big league decisions.

In this case, Edwards needs to be given a clear message that it’s time for him to learn about paybacks in kind rather than search and destroy missions. This includes learning to save paybacks after a bump-and-run for somewhere down the road when the need is timely, the better part of wisdom in a championship chase if your chief rival is the one in debt to you.

In case Nationwide Series Director Joe Balash needs to be reminded, the last lap in NASCAR has always been no holds barred – as long as a driver is trying to win the race. That’s what Keselowski attempted in Turn One. Edwards was trying to deliberately wreck his competitor on the straightaway at the flagstand.
VIDEO: Last Lap Gateway Nationwide - Edwards Wins Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski tangle. (Image: SPEED)

At least Earnhardt Sr. had the decency to wreck himself along with Darrell Waltrip on a short track in their infamous meeting at Richmond in 1986. His unexpected and unpredictable move literally cracked Waltrip’s psyche that day and helped make the next decade his own. In Gateway on Saturday night the move by Edwards was sadly predictable and the fissures in confidence all seemed to belong to him.

Quote of the Week: “The way it went, he bumped me and he finished wherever he finished and I still won the race. That’s the only way I could see the race turning out fair.”

– Carl Edwards, after turning Brad Keselowski on the front straight and starting a ten-car crash en route to victory in the Nationwide Series race at Gateway International Raceway.

See ya! …At the races.

Jonathan Ingram has been writing full-time about the world’s major motor racing series and events since 1983 for newspapers, magazines and web sites.


John can be reached at jingram@racintoday.com

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