Money vs Safety

[cravnravn]

Ive had 3 days to ponder what actually happened Sunday afternoon at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Why Carl Edwards purposely wrecked Brad Keselowski is something we will probably never know the answer to, considering that Edwards didn't have a shot in the race and Brad was at the time in 5th place.

 

This was a classic case of "road rage" gone wrong.

 

Now we have Nascar Officials scared to levy the proper punishment on Edwards for this act. My opinion, they are afraid that if they would have suspended Edwards, that the sponsors of the 99 car (Aflac and Scotts) would have dropped their sponsorship, because a 3 race suspension would have ruined any chance of Edwards of winning the Nascar Championship for the 2010 season.

 

So late Tuesday, Nascar put Edwards on a 3 race probation, which essentially is nothing more than a "don't do that again, we have our eye on you".

What about Keselowski, he was having the race of his life, most likely a top 10 finish or better, Edwards purposely wrecking him cost him 10's of thousands of dollars in place money.

 

We can also play the what if's with situation as well, what if a tire, a piece of metal or god forbid the car itself would have went into the stands and killed or injured spectators. Would a slap on the wrist still been in order for Edwards?

 

We all know we are in economic hard times, and the fear that Nascar has shown with this incident shows where their priorities lie.

[ForceEight]

Their inconsistencies are incredible.

 

Carl Long was basically stripped of his entire career for an engine he was using that was too worn down and didn't pass spec.

 

Kevin Harvick was suspended for something he did in another series altogether.

 

It was obvious that they weren't going to suspend him. Not even for one race. He's definitely one of the five most popular drivers. I doubt that the sponsors would leave, because Roush could easily stick them on one of his cars, or send them over to one of Yates' or Boris Said's unsponsored cars for the missed races.

 

The what if game is definitely prevalent, too. Would anything have happened if Keselowski had just spun down into the grass? There wouldn't be nearly the outrage. Would anything have happened if the car or a part of it had gone into the stands? I guarantee it. Maybe this is a sign of NASCAR simply taking too much stock into what actually happened, and not enough into what could have easily happened. That's how you save yourself today, and get someone killed tomorrow.

 

My biggest problem? The drivers aren't outraged by it. What if it was someone other than Keselowski? Remember when Kenseth and Edwards were in their feud a year or two ago? What if he'd done that to Matt, widely considered one of the nicest guys in the garage. Aside form probably being fired, Edwards wouldn't see a race track for weeks.

 

The fact that it was Keselowski he wrecked plays a lot into this. Many of the drivers thought he deserved or needed something like this; even his teammate said "I'm surprised it wasn't the 11 car" on SPEED's victory lane show. The drivers need to worry less about who got what they deserved and more about how they'd feel if Edwards had done it to them.

 

It's really a shame that NASCAR lets things get like this. This is what happens when things get this subjective.

 

In the meantime, little flippy boy Edwards can kiss my sweet ass.