FEUD OF THE WEEK: Carl Edwards vs. Brad Keselowski
Brad Keselowski pauses as he climbs from his wrecked car at the end of Saturday night's Nationwide Series race. The series points leader finished 14th after contact from Carl Edwards put him in the wall on the final lap. // Dilip Vishwanat, Getty Images for NASCAR
Carl Edwards says Brad Keselowski will learn.
Brad Keselowski says even if Carl Edwards says he’s sorry, that’s not reality.
And so the feud of the week continues.
What began in March during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway continued last Saturday at Gateway International Raceway in a Nationwide Series event.
This time, while battling for the lead on the final lap, Edwards responded to a bump from Keselowski with a shove of his own, a shove that resulted in Keselowski hitting the outside and inside walls before getting clobbered by Shelby Howard.
“I didn’t mean any harm to him at all,” Edwards said of the Gateway incident. “Eventually he will learn that he can’t run into my car over and over and put me in bad situations. In every situation, there’s an aggressor and there’s someone who reacts, and I was not the aggressor in this situation.”
Keselowski said he didn’t feel his tap of Edwards should have resulted in such retaliation.
“He had me pinned down a little bit, which is good, that’s good racing,” Keselowski said. “I can respect that. Of course when you’re pinned down, it takes the air off the right side of these cars. It got me a little loose. I just rubbed him a little bit, rubbed him a little bit in [Turns] 1 and 2. … I was really proud how we were racing each other.
“He was holding me tight and getting me a little loose which was cool. I was rubbing on him a little bit. It was just great racing. I figured out a way to beat him. He wasn’t happy with me, so he wrecked me. Wrecking down the straightaway is never cool whether it’s at 200 mph or 120. I’m sorry that’s the way it had to end.”
That’s the way it ended Saturday, but the feud appears to be far from over. Brad’s father, Bob Keselowski, said in a television interview that he’d get his firesuit on (he hasn’t raced since 1999) and retaliate if need be against the Roush Fenway Racing driver.
Edwards believes they can move on, but he indicated that he doesn’t plan to back down.
“That’s my job – to win that race and to make sure that I don’t get walked on or get something taken away from me that’s mine,” Edwards said. “That’s how I race. And he knows that’s how I race, and I know that’s how he races, too, and we both respect that … I’m sure tempers are up right now, but hopefully after looking at it, we could each step in the other’s shoes and see it from another perspective.”
Judging from Keselowski’s comments, that seems unlikely.
“I’m sure he’ll say how sorry he is, or how cool he thinks he is or how great of a guy he is in his own mind, but that’s not reality,” Keselowski said.
The reality is that Edwards and Keselowski will be battling for the Nationwide Series title. Keselowski, who saw a potential win turn into a 14th-place finish at Gateway, leads the point standings and is 168 points ahead of Edwards.
Whether they are battling for position on the Cup side remains to be seen. Edwards is coming off his best finish of the season as he placed second at Chicago, while Keselowski is in his first full season at Penske Racing and is 26th in the standings.
The two drivers aren’t known for making a ton of friends in the garage area. Keselowski had a public feud with Denny Hamlin last year and Edwards and Kurt Busch were angry with each other a couple of weeks ago after the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona.
NASCAR took no action in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s race, but officials pledged earlier this year to continue to lighten the reins on the drivers.
Earlier this season at Atlanta, Edwards spent 153 laps in the garage following contact from Keselowski. When he returned to the track, he retaliated and the Penske Racing driver ended up on his roof.
“I like the idea of letting us handle it to a certain extent,” said Kevin Harvick, who has been openly critical of Edwards in the past. “But last night was kind of like Atlanta all over again. You put a lot of people in a really bad position when you have stuff happening like that.
“I like to race as rough as anybody but there’s still a line when somebody has to rein somebody in, and, unfortunately, you hope that it doesn’t get to the point where you wind up hurting somebody or you end up killing somebody and hopefully it doesn’t take that long for NASCAR’s reaction to come, to just get everything under control. There has to be a boundary drawn at some point before everything gets to that point.”
