NASCAR In Atlanta: Kurt Busch Wins, Edwards Sends Keselowski Airborne In Controversial Wreck

It looked like one of those oft-familiar days for Dale Earnhardt Jr.

The sport’s most popular driver – occasionally its unluckiest – was headed for a finish outside the top 30 after pitting for what he thought was a loose wheel but wasn’t.

But when it was all over, Earnhardt Jr. had rallied to finish 15th.

Unlucky? Not today.

“Our luck would have been to finish 33rd,” crew chief Lance McGrew said. “We finished 15th. That’s a good day.”

Thanks to the solid result, Earnhardt Jr. moved up two spots in the point standings to 13th – just seven points outside the top 12.

At this time last year, Earnhardt Jr. was 24th.

Still, he walked quickly through the garage en route to a plane ride home, sounding frustrated that he had pitted unnecessarily.

“Long day,” he said. “We were running pretty good. We got two bad right-side tires and the right-rear tire, I don’t know, it felt like the damn wheel was coming off. We pitted and the wheel was fine, but the car was vibrating so bad, I could hardly see.”

Earnhardt Jr. added that he “should’ve not pitted,” except he thought the wheel was about to come off.

“And I’ve had them come off here and it’s not fun,” he said. “I should’ve just stayed out there and waited for it to come off.”

McGrew said that for whatever reason, the tires the No. 88 team got gave the car a “really weird vibration.” The crew chief said the team had yet to determine what happened.

“I mean, after the fact, I don’t think we needed to pit either time,” he said. “But at the time, when you think the tire’s coming off, you don’t need to end your day, you know what I mean?”

Brad Keselowski emerged from a horrifying crash on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway and called for NASCAR to suspend the driver who intentionally caused the wreck.

Keselowski, appearing mostly calm but somewhat shaken outside the infield care center following his crash, said Carl Edwards “decided to just wreck me intentionally down the straightaway and about killed me and a couple thousand people in the grandstands.”

“It’s one thing to race somebody hard and get in an accident when you’re going for position,” Keselowski said. “It’s another to just intentionally wreck someone at 195 mph at a track like this.”

Keselowski emphatically said Edwards should be suspended for “at least one race.”

“We wreck race cars – that’s going to happen, and they happen out of the pursuit of competition and the aggression to go out and win,” Keselowski said. "But they should not happen out of anger at tracks like this at this speed.

“The bottom line is, Carl is an awesome guy – one of the best in the garage. But he made a move that was uncalled for and cannot be tolerated in this sport, or we’re going to kill somebody."

Keselowski reiterated his belief that aside from just driver safety, wrecks like that can pose a threat to fans. A woman was injured last year at Talladega when Keselowski held his line and put Edwards' car airborne in a similar wreck – though that was not intentional.

"It’s not me that I’m worried about, it’s people in the grandstands," said Keselowski, whose car was mangled and crushed near the driver's side roof when he landed. "While I was up in the air, I thought for sure I was going to kill someone.”

Edwards acknowledged on the race broadcast that he spun Keselowski intentionally – retaliation for an earlier incident in which the blame could have gone either way. But Edwards said he did not mean to send Keselowski’s car airborne.

“Brad knows the deal between him and I,” Edwards said. "The scary part was his car went airborne, which was not at all what I expected.

“…I have a lot of respect for people’s safety. I wish it wouldn’t have gone like it did, but I’m glad he’s OK.”

At the time of the crash, Keselowski had been running sixth – a stellar and unexpected run in his first full Sprint Cup season. Edwards was more than 150 laps down as a result of the first incident, in 39th.

Edwards was parked for the remainder of the race following the wreck and called to the NASCAR hauler to speak with officials after the finish. 

Upon emerging, he declined to speak with a number of reporters gathered to hear his side, saying, “I just have no comment on anything. I think that’s best.”

NASCAR President Mike Helton referred reporters to Robin Pemberton, the sanctioning body’s vice president of competition, who said any further penalties would be discussed on Tuesday – as is typical NASCAR procedure.

“We parked the 99 [Edwards], we reacted to what happened on the race track and we’ll go back and discuss it further early in the week,” he said.

Would the severity of the crash be a factor in NASCAR’s decision of whether to suspend Edwards for a race?

“You know, you look at all things, but I just think you have to look at how it started,” Pemberton said.

Other drivers said they hadn’t seen the incident, but it wasn’t entirely a surprise given Keselowski’s reputation for roughing up his competitors with aggressive driving.

“I said that last year because he wrecked a lot of people, I’m sure a lot of people wanted to pay him back,” third-place finisher Juan Pablo Montoya said. “Looking at the TV, somebody did.”

Red Bull Racing driver Brian Vickers said it would be unfair for him to comment on who was at fault because he hadn't seen the incident, but said retaliation can sometimes be effective.

“I don’t know what the 12 [Keselowski] did to the 99, and I don’t know what the 99 did to the 12,” Vickers said. “But I’ll bet you the 12 will think about it before he does it again.”

Ryan Newman, who has been outspoken about NASCAR’s need to prevent cars from getting airborne, said he hoped the upcoming change to a spoiler would help the problem.

“I hope NASCAR’s got that sorted out,” he said. “I said after Talladega, it’s going to happen at an intermediate track, but that window of opportunity is only at the end of the straightaway. … I guess I proved myself right.”

Come hang out with a bunch of race fans on the in-race chat thread for the Kobalt Tools 500 from Atlanta.

Be sure to click the “auto-update” box so you don’t have to keep refreshing the page to see new comments.

Will it be another Hendrick day, or will someone else step up and take the Tool trophy?

Stay tuned….

Our chat has returned for the second week – it was kinda awesome at Vegas last week, so we’ll try it again.

Below, feel free to comment on the Camping World Truck Series race today in Atlanta, or if you have any questions/topics you want to discuss about the Sprint Cup Series, we can do that too.

To paraphrase Robin Pemberton: Boys (and girls), have at it.

Does this sound familiar?

A pair of Hendrick Motorsports cars led the final Sprint Cup practice Saturday afternoon at Atlanta Motor Speedway, with Mark Martin (185.524 mph) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (185.517) representing the power from Hendrick’s 5/88 shop.

Martin Truex Jr. of Michael Waltrip Racing was third, followed by the surprising Paul Menard and home-state favorite David Ragan.

Jeff Burton, Marcos Ambrose, Brian Vickers, Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch rounded out the top 10.

Not everyone was very happy after the Happy Hour session.

Greg Biffle hit the wall and had to go to a backup, and backmarker Boris Said made contact with Kyle Busch (18th), slightly damaging his car.

Among other notable drivers, Jimmie Johnson was 16th, Denny Hamlin was 18th, Tony Stewart was 20th and Jeff Gordon was 25th.

Things don’t look good for the Sprint Cup points leader: Kevin Harvick was a disappointing 40th in final practice.

The Kobalt Tools 500 is expected to begin shortly after 1 p.m. EST tomorrow.

This is starting to look like another Hendrick Motorsports weekend.

Hendrick teammates Jimmie Johnson (189.694 mph) and Mark Martin (188.700) led the first of two Sprint Cup practices on Saturday, with the other Hendrick drivers coming in sixth (Jeff Gordon) and seventh (pole-sitter Dale Earnhardt Jr.).

Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin (third) and Kyle Busch (eighth) were also among the top 10, which also included Kurt Busch (fourth), Kasey Kahne (fifth), Matt Kenseth (ninth) and Marcos Ambrose (10th).

Among those drivers who struggled? The Richard Childress Racing cars were all outside the top 15 (points leader Kevin Harvick was 19th), and Tony Stewart was 21st.

The final Cup practice begins at 12:20 p.m. local time.

Denny Hamlin hears people talking about his slow start. And he hears other teams being praised for their fast start.

But in his mind, it’s too early in the season for any of it to make a difference.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said Friday after his qualifying lap. “It’s a bunch of shit, really. It’s dumb. But people need something to talk about, and for us, it’s just we’re slow starters. We’ve always been slow starters and it’s just a characteristic of our race team.”

Hamlin’s season thus far has included finishes of 17th, 29th and 19th, which puts him 21st in points heading into Atlanta.

He predicted before the season that his team would fly under the radar with average finishes early in the year as they prepared for the summer stretch run and the Chase.

But he acknowledged his frustration that those runs haven’t been as good as expected.

“It’s always frustrating, because we just won the race [at Homestead] three or four races ago,” he said. “To go from a race-winning car or a top-three car from the end of last season…look, at the end of last season, everyone has the best of everything they’ve got on the racetrack. Everything they’ve learned the whole season is what they’ve got.

“At the beginning of the season, sometimes it takes awhile for teams to get caught up with race cars, building new cars, things like that.”

Hamlin indicated that he feels it’s the same with his team. He said his cars are “the same” as they were last year, but that everyone else has picked up speed.

And regarding his comments in a USA Today diary in which he noted Toyota motors need more power?

“I just felt like Hendrick has been the standard,” he said. “It’s common knowledge to everyone that they have the best stuff. For us, I think we’re a little bit behind in that department, that’s all.”

Hamlin insisted – firmly – that he’s not making any declarations at this point in the season about anyone’s chances, and questioned those who do.

“People talk about guys that are in the top 10, top 15 in points right now [as being contenders],” he said. “They talk about them every single year, and then the next thing you know, they’re 30th at the end of the year.

“It takes us awhile to get in the swing of the season. For us, it takes awhile.”

Maybe there’s light at the end of the tunnel for Dale Earnhardt Jr. after all.

On a chilly night at the fast 1.5-mile oval south of Atlanta, Earnhardt Jr. won the pole for Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500, meaning he’ll start from the top spot for the first time in nearly two years.

Earnhardt Jr.’s qualifying speed of 192.761 mph was the fastest ever in NASCAR’s new model car, and the Hendrick Motorsports driver edged Kyle Busch (192.280) to win the pole.

"It's good to be on the pole and I'm real proud of it.," Earnhardt Jr. said. "But we're just so hungry to do much better on Sunday. We're starving for a good finish and for something like this to happen on Sunday for us, and that's really all we can think about."

Juan Pablo Montoya was third, followed by the Hendrick duo of Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon.

Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman, Elliott Sadler, David Reutimann and Carl Edwards rounded out the top 10.

The pole was the ninth of Earnhardt Jr.’s career, but only his third in the last eight seasons.

It was the second time he has won the pole in Atlanta, where he is a past winner.

"It looks like we got some things working better," Earnhardt Jr. said, suppressing a smile. "We’ll just try to see if we can’t keep improving our team. These kind of runs help the guys’ confidence on our team. When the confidence gets better in what you’re doing, you can kind of feed off of that and you’ll see things around you sort of steadily improve, so hopefully that’ll happen to us."

Earnhardt Jr. was pleasant and chatty after his qualifying run; not to the point of being openly happy, but a bit lighter than the serious tone he had taken in the opening weeks.

The sport’s most popular driver spent all day in qualifying setup, a strategy which helped him last week and he estimated was shared by about a quarter of the field at Atlanta.

Are things really turning around?

"A lot of things can happen over time, and we've seen race teams be able to completely change their identity in the offseason before," he said. "I'm just hoping to start to see this difference in the car on Sunday."

He pledged to make sure his car worked on the bottom groove during practice tomorrow – believing it would pay off later – and said he’ll keep with his Atlanta tradition by flying back to North Carolina to sleep in his own bed on Saturday night.

"Them buses are better than sleeping in a hotel room, but them buses get cramped and you get cabin fever every once in awhile," he said.

Mark Martin is off to a fast start at one of NASCAR’s fastest tracks.

Martin posted a fast lap of 189.409 mph in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet during the first Sprint Cup practice session on Friday, ahead of Kyle Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (189.260).

Kasey Kahne jumped up to third in his Richard Petty Motorsports Ford late in the 90-minute session, and the Chevys of Ryan Newman and Juan Pablo Montoya rounded out the top five.

Busch’s JGR teammate Denny Hamlin rallied with the sixth-fastest lap at the very end – jumping more than 20 spots – and Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, David Ragan and Dale Earnhardt Jr. completed the top 10.

Several notable drivers had disappointing practice results.

Tony Stewart was 22nd, points leader Kevin Harvick was 29th and Jeff Gordon – who had the strongest car at Las Vegas last week – was a surprising 35th.

Next up for the Cup cars is qualifying, which begins at 6:10 p.m. EST tonight.

Kasey Kahne was fairly outspoken about his cars prior to the Las Vegas race, which is saying a lot for the laid-back, generally quiet guy.

Kahne said in Vegas that while the Ford motors were improved over the ones he had with Dodge, “I wouldn’t say my car is any different than it was last year.”

That was surprising, given Richard Petty Motorsports’ alliance with Roush Fenway Racing was expected to pay bigger dividends in information-sharing.

But Kahne said Roush’s setups weren’t any better than the ones he had at RPM last year.

“I expected the cars to be better, I mean just a little bit,” he said in Vegas. "You’d think gaining with that many people in that group and pulling our knowledge and their knowledge together you would think, ‘Man, we’ve got to have a better balance on race cars doing that.’

“That’s not the case, but I think as the season goes, hopefully, it will be the case, but not as of right now.”

But Friday in Atlanta, Kahne was asked whether anyone with Roush had gotten upset with his comments. Kahne bristled a bit.

“I said we had a better engine than we did a year ago, so that would mean we were better off than we were a year ago,” he said. "I said as far as the cars go, they’re not any better. The handling isn’t any better than what we had the year before, but the engine is better so we’re in a better situation and we’re in a better spot.

“Nobody said a word to me. I think they understand what I was saying.”

Raise your hand if you thought Kevin Harvick would be the points leader after three races.

Despite being unable to see through the computer screen to determine if your hand is up or not, let’s just say for argument’s sake that very few people – if any – thought Harvick would rebound from his ugly 2009 (19th in points, only nine top-10s) to lead the Sprint Cup points heading into Atlanta.

You may want to include Harvick among those with his hands down. Harvick has three top-10s in three races and has had a shot to win all of them.

“I know how we finished last year and we expected to start well – I don’t think we expected to have a chance to win every race so far,” Harvick said Friday. “But we expected to start well and do well on the race track.”

But even if he’d been a preseason favorite or felt he had fast cars, Harvick noted “you never really know what you’re going to get caught up in.”

“You just never know,” he said. “Last year, we couldn’t do anything right. If it was going to happen, we were in the wrecks, we had mechanical failures. Those things go in cycles, and you can’t get too overwhelmed by those things happening, because you can only control the things you can control.”

Harvick isn’t the only one at Richard Childress Racing having a rebound year – the whole team is. Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton have also shown to be impressive so far, and there’s talk from the drivers that they think they might be able to hang with Jimmie Johnson.

“Our job is to keep it going that way, and that’s the hard part about this sport,” Harvick said. “You’ve got to stay ahead of that curve, because everybody in this garage who’s behind is working to catch up, just like we were – and they all will.”