Carl Edwards and car owner Jack Roush flew to Daytona Beach, Fla., on Thursday to meet with top NASCAR executives over lingering concerns from last weekend’s final-lap crash at Talladega Superspeedway. NASCAR.com
“It was really a good talk, and I think that we’re all on the same page and that we want to do whatever we can to make these races as safe as they can be for everybody — the fans and the drivers and all that,” Edwards said.
Edwards doesn’t pretend to be an expert, but the solution to him is clear when it comes to making racing safer around the fastest oval in the series. NASCAR uses the plates to choke the horsepower and slow the cars on the 2.66-mile oval. It forces the cars to run at about the same speed in one large pack.
“The bottom line is unless you take the banking out of that race track or we don’t go race there, you’ve got this big problem trying to keep the cars apart, keep them slow,” he said.
The meeting, he said, left him hopeful that NASCAR might do something.
“I’ve just got to have faith that something will be done,” he said. The Associated Press
Many drivers were quick to absolve Edwards and Keselowski from blame in the crash, chalking the incident up to NASCAR’s rules prohibiting passes below the yellow out-of-bounds line and the inherent no-holds-barred nature of a last-lap contest for the lead. Defending Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, a former Talladega winner, said he would have done much the same thing had he been in Edwards’ shoes with the checkered flag in sight.
“There are some small things that could have changed, but I think on both sides, those guys did all that they could to win the race,” Johnson said. “I don’t really see a lot of fault in either situation.”
Three days after the race, NASCAR said that the roof flaps on Edwards’ car worked properly in the wreck and that his No. 99 Ford was returning to the ground before an impact with Ryan Newman changed its trajectory. Newman disputed that claim Friday, also pointing toward Matt Kenseth’s upside-down ride during Saturday’s Nationwide Series race.
“Like I said, we saw two cars that got upside down, all by themselves basically,” Newman said. “They got spun around, but they still got airborne by themselves. So, there is work that needs to be done. I’m not satisfied with it coming back down. It should never get airborne in the first place.” USA Today
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