Brad Keselowski, Carl Edwards have clean night in first race since tangle
Carl Edwards goes on to victory after spinning Brad Keselowski at Gateway International Raceway. The two drivers had no such issues in Saturday night's Nationwide Series event at O'Reilly Raceway Park. // Dilip Vishwanat, Getty Images for NASCAR
INDIANAPOLIS – Well, there was no Carl Edwards-Brad Keselowski Round 3 on Saturday night.
A week after their well-publicized run-in at Gateway International Raceway, Edwards and Keselowski raced each other cleanly Saturday night in the Nationwide Series race at O’Reilly Raceway Park.
They restarted side-by-side at one point in the race and passed each other at various moments in the 200-lap event.
A week earlier, Edwards wrecked Keselowski after Keselowski bumped him to take the lead on the final lap at Gateway. Both drivers were put on probation, with Edwards also getting a 60-point penalty and a $25,000 fine.
“We gave each other plenty of room, and that’s good,” said Edwards, who finished. “Hopefully we can keep doing that going forward. But it’s just hard racing. This is the Nationwide Series, and we’re both racing for a championship. I enjoyed our racing tonight.”
Keselowski, who finished eighth, was running second on a restart with 28 laps remaining but was among the few that didn’t have fresh tires.
“I thought it was pretty decent racing by most everybody, just good hard short-tracking,” Keselowski said when asked about Edwards.
The Penske Racing driver said he was relieved to get the race over without controversy.
Edwards, who drivers for Roush Fenway Racing said he had no concerns about retaliation.
“Even after all the talk this week, I never worry about racing here,” Edwards said. “I wasn’t worried about it – for the most part we race really well. The times we haven’t, it has gotten out of hand, but tonight it went really well.”
Edwards did have contact with one driver – race winner Kyle Busch but both drivers said that it was nothing more than hard racing.
“He could have used me up more than he did, but it could have cost us both time instead of just him being able to get by,” Busch said. “You have to have a really methodical way about doing it here. There just wasn’t enough time for him to do it in two laps.
“We had a fast enough race car tonight where we were good enough to hold our position there and Carl raced me, he bumped me a couple times but it was good. It wasn’t clean because it wasn’t anything – it was good, hard clean racing and that’s what happens when you race guys together cleanly over time and race each other with respect – you get respect back.”
