Brad Keselowski Gets Big Air
By Wyatt Earp | March 8, 2010
If you didn’t see this week’s NASCAR race at Atlanta, you missed this:
Thankfully, Keselowski was okay. His car? Eh, not so much.
UPDATE: In case you’re interested, I’ll be liveblogging over at Blogs4Bauer tonight (9pm Eastern).
Topics: Racing, Video | 10 Comments »
March 8th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Ouch! He’s lucky to be alive.
March 8th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
And Carl Edwards will be lucky to have a car on Tuesday!
March 8th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
Holy Freakin’ Crap! And he WALKED AWAY from that?!?!?!
That, my fellow bloggers, is nothing short of a miracle.
March 8th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
Edwards is just lucky no fans were injured by his little stunt; he’d be in jail tonight if either Kesolowski’s car or debris from it had sailed into the stands and gotten people hurt and/or killed. Carl probably deserves a week or two off for it.
IIRC, Edwards and Kesolowski got (unintentionally) tangled up in a race last year and Edwards’ car went airborne and bounced off the fence, resulting in injuries to several fans from flying debris. They’ve been apparently feuding ever since…
Still, isn’t this generally the sort of thing that’s best left settled on the track? (Just as Sean Avery and what’s-his-face should have been allowed to settle their battle for “Kimmy’s” honor on the NHL ice last season.) Why should Edwards – playing devils’ advocate here – get penalized when you consider that the late Dale Earnhardt deliberately wrecked quite a few people over the course of his career, and never faced any serious penalty for it?
March 8th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
C, Edwards and Kesolowski got (unintentionally) tangled up
It was Talledega, and it was for the win. Unintentionally? That’s very open to interpretation. Remember Brad and Denny Hamilin were at it hammer and tong last year as well. Brad just got some “friendly advice” from the big red trailer with no sanctions. If his refusal to give and only take was stepped on last year this wouldn’t have happened.
And I like Brad. He’s exciting to watch. He’s very much a future star, and he’s suffering growing pains just as Shrub has done.
Earnhardt’s behavior was in a different era. That NASCAR was sponsored by cigarettes and had drivers who consumed the product named Dick Trickle. It was not PC. I’ll agree, though, he did get away with a bunch. Rusty Wallace would agree – Dale is the one who sent him on the barrel at Niagara ride at Talledega in 1993.
NASCAR is kinda backed up against the wall now as well. They’ve famously adopted the “Let the drivers settle this among themselves” and “Let boys be boys.” Well, this is an example of taking that to the extreme.
I follow a lot of NASCAR types on Twitter, and this was definitely a lighting rod last night and today. One of the more significant questions was “What if Brad didn’t catch air?” Same thing before – what would everyone’s reaction be then?
What Carl did was wrong. All he had to do was wait until Bristol, and he could get all the payback he could stand. But, Brad is going to keep getting into these things if he continues his antics. Most of the other drivers don’t refuse to lift and go ahead and hit another car when said car gets loose. If Brad had breathed on the throttle a bit, Carl could have caught his car, and Brad could have motored on by on down the trackwithout damaging his own car. He took himself out of any chance of winning when he did that.
NASCAR also has “progressive discipline” based on the frequency and severity of the offense. Personally, I expect Carl to have six months probation. I have my doubts if they’ll park him for a race or three. NASCAR doesn’t do that for a “first offense.”
It wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong, though!
March 9th, 2010 at 9:18 am
Edwards may want to hire bodyguards. I’m just saying’.
March 9th, 2010 at 11:25 am
That’s what Brad gets for messing with the big boys. And that’s what NASCAR gets for letting drivers police themselves.
Crash away boys; I never sit in the first 20 rows of a race!
March 9th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
John D – Say what you want about NASCAR – they take safety very seriously.
1oldleg – From today’s news, there will be no suspension of Edwards, even though it was deemed a deliberate act. Wow.
Raptor – NASCAR learned the lessons from the Dale Earnhardt Sr. death and ramped up safety immediately.
Wes S. – Edwards should at least be given a points penalty and put on probation. If it was a lesser-known driver, that’s what would have happened.
Jeffro – Exactly. Talladega was hard racing and Edwards lost that round. Of course, I give Dale Sr a pass because I despised Rusty Wallace, but you’re correct: it was a different era. Hopefully, Edwards will watch his arse from now on, and you had a great point – with Bristol around the corner, they could have bumped and roughed it up all day and no one would have batted an eye.
MeToo – Or have a few cars driving around him to keep Keselowski at bay.
Randal – Neither do I. Too risky.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
Yawn,…I saw the same thing on the PaTP this weekend. The a-hole that caused it was arrested. This guy gets a slap on the wrist? Ri-i-ight. Because NASCAR is a sport,…
March 9th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
BA – With a total attendance of 4,472,000 in a “down year” of 2009? Yeah, I think that classifies as a sport. I’d still take it over uber-boring, steroid-ridden baseball any day of the week and twice on Sunday.