“Have at ’em boys”!
That phrase is now becoming a huge topic of conversation amongst the NASCAR community, now that the driver of the Roush-Fenway Racing’s #60 Aflac Ford, Carl Edwards, has become a one-man wrecking crew in both the Sprint Cup Series and now the Nationwide Series! Unfortunately, Edwards seems rather focused on just one competitor in both series, Penske Racing’s “Blazingly Bad” Brad Keselowski! Humm!
The wild ending was setup by a late race crash that brought out a yellow flag, precipitating a green-white-checkered finish. On that restart “Blazingly Bad” Brad was on the inside of the front row, with Edwards to his outside. When the green flag waved, Keselowski drove it deep into the first turn from the inside lane, banged fenders with Edwards, and came out of turn #2 in the lead.
As the two cars raced down the back straight and thru turns #3 and 4 the Penske Racing #22 Discount Tires Dodge was ever so slightly in the lead. Coming out of turn #4, heading for the checkered flag Brad K was still in the lead by approximately 1 car length. With the finish line was just a mere few hundred feet straight ahead, victory seemed to be all but assured for Keselowski. Were it not for Carl Edwards sticking his left front fender hard into Brad K’s right rear quarter panel, turning the #22 Discount Tires Dodge hard into the outside retaining wall, causing havoc from behind, several cars were trying to stop but hopelessly piling into each other, and finally Keselowski taking a very hard T-bone type hit just a few feet from the finish line, “Blazingly Bad” Brad would have won the race!
However, that was not to happen Saturday night at Gateway International Raceway. Instead, Keselowski’s unrecognizable pile of crumple sheet metal was relegated to the rollback and 14th place. Edwards, nevertheless, was ushered up to victory lane for the celebration of his victory. In Edward’s media interview, there was no remorse for the havoc and destruction that he caused. In fact, Edwards took full credit for his works!
The move was a payback, Edwards said, for an incident earlier in the final lap when Keselowski tapped him from behind to get the lead in Turn One.
“I just couldn’t let him take the win from me,” Edwards, who drew a three-race probation in March for unabashedly turning Keselowski in a NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Atlanta, with the unintended consequence of sending the #12 Dodge upside-down into the frontstretch wall, said. “My guys work way too hard for that.
“We had a great restart. My guys built me a great car. We came to the checkered flag, and I hate to see stuff tore up, but we came here to win and he took it from us there in Turn 1. Just an awesome race. … I’m sure some of them don’t like that win – Brad Keselowski fans and stuff – but, man, I just couldn’t let him take it from me. I had to do what I had to do.”
Did Edwards really have to do what he did? Is it time to reign in some of these drivers? Where do you draw the line on overly aggressive driving? Instead of ambulances does NASCAR need a hearse at the track?
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
