Carl Edwards gets a slap on the wrist for his antics on Saturday
It looks like NASCAR wasn’t really interested in showing Carl Edwards that he was wrong in go back on the track and slamming into the side of Dale Earnhardt Jr. car on Saturday. They also overlooked the fact that he went after Dale Jr. and grabbed his firesuit near Victory Lane trying to show him that he wasn’t happy with the bump on the track. This was all quite obvious when NASCAR announced the so called penalties that they handed down to Carl Edwards; he received a $20,000.00 fine a was placed on probation for the remainder of the season.
He should have at the very least lost 25 driver points in Busch Series and he actually should have been parked for the next race. That is exactly what NASCAR did to Kevin Harvick when he had an off the track incident with a fellow competitor in pits after a truck race on Saturday afternoon. NASCAR immediately decided that he was going to be parked for the remainder of the weekend and that meant he had to miss Sundays Cup Series race.
So, I am really not sure what it would take for NASCAR to hand down another punishment like that, but if anyone deserved it would have been Edwards. After all, first he raced down pit road to slam into the side of Dale Earnhardt Jr. car and then he goes after him and grabs his firesuit because he was still mad at him. Where is the deterrent, what exactly is to keep Edwards from doing it again? All he got was a joke of a fine and probation.
This is the second time less than a month that Carl Edwards has used his car to retaliate against a fellow competitor for an incident on the track. A couple of weeks ago, it was him spinning Tony Stewart going into pit road, which was in retaliation for Stewart causing a wreck that took out Edwards car. He obviously didn’t learn anything from that punishment and I seriously doubt he will learn anything from this one either.
And NASCAR wonders why they have credibility issues.
I remember showing up at Martinsville early on a Sunday morning to the rumors that Kevin Harvick was out for the day. Sure enough, standing beside the 29 on the fornt stretch during driver intro’s was none other than the Hermanator.
I wonder why NASCAR didn’t sack up and make the right call this time?
Hmmm…
Comment by Luke — August 23, 2006 @ 5:38 am
Luke,
That would involve sitting out one of their new Golden Boys and they wouldn’t want to do that. NASCAR has had a credibility problem ever since Jeff Gordon became a Cup Series driver.
Comment by Administrator — August 23, 2006 @ 5:56 am
I think the problem is it would involve sitting out one of the sponsers, It’s called $$$$$$$$$$$$
Comment by DonB — August 25, 2006 @ 10:48 am
Donb,
You are right, it is all about the money and ever since Brian France took over for daddy France, it has gotten so much worse.
Comment by Administrator — August 25, 2006 @ 5:24 pm