Is NASCAR becoming a free for all?
By Liz Walker
I like hard racing and wrecks just as much as any NASCAR fan. The question for me is, Is NASCAR doing enough to prevent over aggressive racing? While they did give drivers the go ahead to “have at it” but when does that become a problem? I’ve seen too many people go after another driver for an incident earlier in the race.
While retaliation isn’t unheard of in NASCAR, it’s something that should be taken a bit more seriously. I can understand coming up behind someone who’s hit you into a wall and bumping the back of them ever so slightly. As long as it’s straight on. I think drivers tend to forget just how light and easy to damage their cars really are.
One of the worst handled cases being at Atlanta. Around lap 40 Brad Keselowski got loose and had no room. He ended up hitting Carl Edwards who ended up sliding up the track and hitting the wall. Looking at replays, which Carl was able to do, you can see Brad got loose. Later in the day at lap 323 Carl intentionally turned his car into Brad’s.
While he may not have meant for anything to happen, Brad’s car became airborne. Brad hit the wall upside down and was taken out of the race.
At this point Brad was running in sixth and Carl was 157 laps down. NASCAR immediatley black flagged Carl and called him into the NASCAR hauler. Officials sited him for aggressive driving and had him go to talk with officials.
What angers me the most is that Carl really acted like he didn’t care. His response to the whole thing was “Well Brad knows the deal between me and him. I didn’t mean for it to go down that way and as drivers we need to have respect for each other. Hopefully we can move on from this and not have any more incidences. That would be the best thing.”
WHAT??? Carl had just wrecked a car, put Brad’s life in danger, put the fans who were sitting in the stands in danger, caused a messy cleanup process and intentionally took Brad out of the race. The other thing that angered me was that as punishment Carl is on a THREE RACE probation.
This makes no sense to me. Robby Gordon and Juan Pablo Montoya were both suspended for longer than three days for intentionally causing wrecks. They were also both fined and docked points every time they intentionally caused a wreck. Robby has been fined for swearing and throwing a helmet after someone wrecked him. Countless other drivers have been fined or suspended for wrecks far less destructive. Yet all Carl gets is a slap on the wrist, a don’t do it again and a we’re watching you.
Carl Edwards used to be one of my favorite drivers. Now I’m disgusted with hhim. He showed poor judgement and sportsmanship. He intentionally endangered not only Brad and the fans, but the cars who were behind Brad as well. I hope Nascar reconsiders his punishment and decides to send a stronger message.
Brad Keselowski had it right when he said “NASCAR now has the ball. If they’re going to allow people to intentionally wreck each other. They’re putting the drivers in danger and the fans in danger. Allowing someone to wreck another driver at 195 miles per hour is uncalled for.” I agree with Brad and am deeply disappointed with how NASCAR has handled this incident.
