Four Wide: Edwards stands by actions

As NASCAR returns to the scene of the most spectacular wreck of the season, Carl Edwards remains unrepentant for his actions.

"I did what I did and I did it for a damn good reason," he said recently.

What he did was spin Brad Keselowski into a flying top at Atlanta Motor Speedway back on March 7. However, why Edwards did it, though not with those consequences intended, had its roots long before Keselowski spun and wrecked him earlier in that same race. The truth is, the Edwards-Keselowski feud had been brewing for a while.

There was a good bit of hysteria in the days following the accident as people called on NASCAR to take swift and severe punishment against Edwards. They argued that Edwards’ actions had endangered both Keselowski and the race fans who lined the fence near the site of the accident and could have been injured by flying debris, or worse, Keselowski's car if it had gone into the grandstands. It was the fright-factor that so enraged the public.

Lost in the debate was that had Keselowski's car not gone airborne, the entire incident would have been chalked up as just another one of them racin' deals. Instead, Edwards was crucified as if he had intentionally tried to inflict serious injury on a driver he was at odds with.

"It's pretty amazing people give me all this credit that I knew exactly how to flip a car over at a track that a car has never flipped over like that before," he said. "That turned into the worst-case scenario, or the most dramatic scenario, far from what I expected.

"It's funny, if you look at this sport objectively, if you look at what's going on sometimes in different situations, it's pretty amazing how this same situation with the same set of circumstances can get twisted in so many ways depending on who is involved or what people say about it."

A majority of race fans disagree, but Edwards deserves credit for never wavering in his views of the accident: He did it on purpose, he meant to send a message and he never expected Keselowski's car to go airborne.

Understand, Edwards believed he was at the end of his rope with Keselowski. The two had raced hard for more than a year in the Nationwide Series, with Edwards firmly believing he had been on the losing end of Keselowski's aggressive driving style far too often.

It boiled over in the Cup race at Atlanta when earlier in the race Keselowski made contact with Edwards, sending him to the garage. At that point, Edwards had had enough, and when his crew finished repairing his car, Edwards returned to the track, sought out Keselowski, and did what he did.

The situation was very similar to the one between Denny Hamlin and Keselowski. After contact between those two once again damaged Hamlin's car in a Nationwide race at Phoenix, Hamlin vowed to take matters into his own hands.

He delivered the next week in the Nationwide season finale at Homestead with intentional contact, the only difference being that Hamlin's actions caused nothing more than a spin that Keselowski recovered from to finish 12th.

Edwards wasn't as smooth with his retaliation, but his initial intent was no different than Hamlin's.

It hasn't helped Edwards’ reputation that another run-in with Keselowski in the final laps of the Nationwide race at Gateway in July ended with another vicious accident. After Keselowski bumped Edwards out of the lead on the final lap of the Nationwide race, Edwards responded by wrecking Keselowski for the win.

NASCAR fined Edwards, but sent a message to Keselowski as well by putting both drivers on probation. And like the Atlanta wreck, Edwards hasn't backed down from what his original intent was in retaliating against Keselowski.

"It's really simple," he began, "I treat everyone the way they treat me. I'm not gonna let somebody take advantage of me. That's all there is to it."

If Keselowski had never gone airborne, the entire feud would likely be nothing more than a sideshow to Sunday night's race. Instead, it has become a focus of this return trip to Atlanta. And anytime the two are racing near each other on the track, their past feud will be drummed up again.

But Edwards doesn't plan on changing a thing.

"What I'm going to do is I'm just going to go race my car as hard as I can and be the best person I can be just like I've always done," he said. "And if people don't understand that, that's their problem. I stand up and take responsibility for my actions, and I've always done that.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just the way it went."

Aside from those two, here's what else to watch for at Atlanta:

1. Jamie McMurray vs. Clint Bowyer is the only real remaining battle:

Only Kevin Harvick and Jeff Gordon have secured their spots in the 12-driver Chase, but nine more can nail down their positions Sunday night.

Bowyer is the only driver on the bubble, and he's got a fairly breathable 100-point margin over Jamie McMurray. Mark Martin trails McMurray by just one point.

Since Martin has admitted his team isn't yet running well enough to contend for wins, we now turn our attention to McMurray, who has been hit-or-miss all season. He stepped up for victories at Daytona and Indianapolis, the two biggest races of the year, and was second at Darlington and third at Bristol, two more of the crown jewels on the NASCAR schedule.

On the flipside, McMurray has finished outside the top 20 in 11 races this year.

So it really comes down to who best handles the pressure over the next two weeks. Bowyer, assuming his car is even mediocre, just needs to maintain and coast it through Atlanta and Richmond without any disasters.

He did an excellent job of rebounding from adversity after an early pit-road penalty at Bristol two weeks ago, but he's also been known to falter when faced with difficult circumstances.

McMurray isn't exactly the model of steely nerves, either. At times he's proved to be extremely fragile, and in two previous chances to race his way into the Chase at Richmond, he came up short.

But in the biggest events, McMurray has performed well, and it will be interesting to see if he can at least make a run at Bowyer. He realistically may be out of time to claim the 12th position, but it's an opportunity for McMurray to show some mettle.

2. Mark Martin needs a miracle:

Martin is realistic about his chances of making the Chase with only two races remaining to set the 12-driver field. He goes into Sunday's race 14th in the standings and 101 points behind Clint Bowyer.

"Where we are now," Martin said, "it would be a surprise to make up that kind of ground in two races."

A five-race winner a year ago, Martin finished second to Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson in 2009. But he's winless this season and after climbing to sixth in the standings in April, he's been on the Chase bubble the entire summer and has cracked the top 10 just once since his fourth-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600 back in May.

Martin knows that to make the Chase now, his No. 5 team needs to be flawless and Bowyer would have to have some pretty bad luck.

"It would come at Clint's expense, for sure," Martin said. "If we were able to go out and win Atlanta, then we might think going into Richmond that we could get back in the Chase. But realistically, it seems like we've got some work to do before we're going to be a contender to win races."

3. Kasey Kahne heads back to one of his better tracks:

Kahne is a two-time Atlanta winner, and this weekend marks the one-year anniversary of his last victory.

At 16th in the standings and 136 points out, Kahne knows the Chase is probably out of reach. But he'd like a strong closing to his tenure with Richard Petty Motorsports, which ends 12 weeks from now when he moves to Red Bull Racing for a layover before he joins Hendrick Motorsports in 2012.

"If we don't make the Chase, hopefully we can show up to the race track each week and contend," Kahne said. "If we do make the Chase, we can do the same thing, contend. I feel we should have a really good shot at winning a race or two regardless if we make it or not."

This final three months could be the end of his time with crew chief Kenny Francis. While Kahne says most of his crew has decided what they'll do next season – "I've heard a lot of them going different places or staying where they're at," – it's not clear if Francis has made a decision, and sources have indicated that there's been a hard push by Roush Fenway Racing to bring him officially aboard.

Roush is a partner of RPM, and some of its teams have relied on Francis' notes and setups the past two months.

Kahne has stayed out of the public debate and wants only to finish the year able to say everyone gave their best.

"I feel like everybody's done the best job they could," he said. "There's been some times where I wondered. But they wondered about me, too."

4. Will David Reutimann stand up on the track to Kyle Busch?

Busch didn't start out intending to slight Reutimann when he explained why he beat him at Bristol.

"Reutimann was fast, and he was good. And I'm not going to say why I beat him because then he'll fix it, but it has to do with behind the wheel," Busch initially offered.

But, as Busch is prone to do, he said too much.

"He wasn't driving the place right," he offered without provocation. "If he fixes how to drive this place, he'd be right there with me."

And that didn't sit well with Reutimann, who during an interview on Sirius XM Radio, went off on the comment he called "the stupidest" thing he had ever heard.

"I don't know if [it was] the fact that his Superman cape was flying out the back when I was behind him and I couldn't see, or what the deal was," Reutimann said. "We got beat fair and square. That's what it comes down to. We just got outrun. Professor Busch, maybe he can start a driving school at Bristol and the rest of the field can join in and go and [he can] show all of us what we're doing wrong. I need help."

Now they go to Atlanta, where both drivers could be running near each other. Busch proved at Bristol he's able to drive away from a feud when he cleanly passed Keselowski following a day of on-track banging and off-track barbs.

Reutimann's a different story. The guy can be a bit bland, but his reaction to Busch's assessment clearly set him off. Since his driving style is similar to Busch's – they both race hard on every single lap – he just may have something to prove on Sunday.

"It all comes down to the fact that we just don't like each other very much," Reutimann said. "We agree we don't like each other and we're both fine with it."