Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett believe Carl Edwards crossed the line in wrecking Brad Keselowski at Gateway
While NASCAR officials are still trying to determine whether Carl Edwards will be penalized for retaliating against Brad Keselowski at Gateway International Speedway Saturday, at least two former Cup champions – Jeff Gordon and Dale Jarrett – say that Edwards crossed the line.
Edwards won the NASCAR Nationwide Series Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 just moments after hitting Keselowski, sending him crashing into both the outside and inside walls, where he was then collected by other cars coming to the finish.
The Roush Fenway Racing driver said the bump was a byproduct of earlier contact between the two drivers in Turn 1 and he wasn’t going to let Keselowski win after such a move.
“Looking at the incidents, [it] looked to me like Brad got into him a little bit getting into [Turn] 1, but was just racing hard for the position, for the win,” said four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon on a NASCAR teleconference Tuesday to preview the Brickyard 400. “Then what Carl did I felt like was definitely out of line. I felt like it was over and above what needed to be done.
“You don’t know what kind of bad blood there is between the two. Whether or not NASCAR gets involved in it, I think two, three, four, five years ago, I would have thought absolutely they would have done something, maybe taken the win away or docked points or a fine or something like that. Today, it’s letting the guys race.”
Edwards was put on three weeks probation in March after retaliating against Keselowski in the Sprint Cup race at Atlanta. That accident didn’t collect other cars, but it did turn him upside down on his roof. A NASCAR spokesman said Tuesday afternoon that NASCAR officials are still discussing the events and if any penalties are issued, they likely would come Wednesday.
ESPN analyst Dale Jarrett said that the retaliation is a product of the sport, which has gotten more physical on the track. But Edwards, he said, could definitely see a penalty.
“What we see a lot of times from TV, or if you were there live, it’s totally different than what takes place in the driver compartment,” Jarrett said. “But it looked like that Carl may have stepped over the line a little bit right there. It looked to me like Brad had given him plenty of racing room and did his job. … If I had to guess, they will put Carl on probation or something like that and make him think about what he’s doing.”
Gordon said penalty or not, drivers will continue to police themselves.
“The drivers have always taken care of these things on track, whether you knew about them or not,” Gordon said. “They just weren’t maybe as much out in the open because there would be a fine or there would be some kind of penalty handed down immediately.
“So you thought from an outsider’s standpoint, ‘That’s over.’ But, trust me, as a driver, that was not over, that was not the end of it.”
