As they say on Sirius’ Morning Driver, “I’m Standing Up!”.

NASCAR has laid the hammer down to Carl Edwards today for his actions on the track Sunday. There was great outcry for suspension, fines, probation, removal of points, etc., but I never saw this one coming. Carl Edwards received a 3-race probation for his actions. That’s it my fellow NASCAR fans. No loss of points, no loss of money, no suspension–just probation for three little bitty races.

I don’t know what to say about the “punishment” handed down today. I am utterly speechless (and that doesn’t happen) very often. When the season started NASCAR decided to let the drivers take care of things or “have at it”. It was just a matter of time before this new philosophy by NASCAR would be tested. I thought it would be sooner than race 4, but here we all are today pondering the decision by NASCAR.   On one hand we fans have been asking NASCAR to allow the drivers to take care of their business between themselves instead of NASCAR stepping in at every little turn.  NASCAR listened and changed things.  Flash forward Sunday when Brad tags Carl and sends him up the track and into the #20.  Carl is upset and decides to take care of things between him and Brad.  Brad ends up spinning and flipping to the surprise of us all.  This is where everything gets a little muddy. 

I for one was expecting a little more punishment from NASCAR–perhaps a fine and loss of points.  But just probation?  I wanted to see what others around NASCAR thought of the punishment so I headed on over to Twitter to see some of the people I follow.  I have to say they are very interesting and some are quite funny.  It’s a mix bag.  I even found myself responding to fellow Tweeters as well as on Facebook and as always here in The Park. 

I am not a fan of Carl Edwards.  I would have liked to have seen Carl get more than just a three race probation.  Carl was several laps down when he decided to turn his #99 car into Brad K. to get back for the earlier race incident.  The race was almost over and Brad was on track to have a finish in the top 10.  I guess in Carl’s mind since Brad messed up his day, Carl should mess up his.  Sounds like a plan to me.  If I can’t have a good day, why should you.  Maybe that is what he was telling himself as he was logging laps around the track all day.  The more he circled Atlanta Motor Speedway, the more time he thought about it, the more angrier he got and well…here we are.   Carl intentionally wrecked Brad–plain and simple.  If you have seen the video, you know this is true and besides I knew the minute he got into Brad, I felt it was payback.  It’s one thing if Carl’s car was actually loose and it was a racing deal, but it wasn’t.  It was intentional.  I don’t think the early incident was intentional.  Should Brad haven’t given a little bit of room early in the race, yes.  Did Brad try to give Edwards room and by the time Carl was there, he couldn’t lift?  Maybe.  I wasn’t in the car with Brad to know exactly what he was doing at the time.  I was at home in my recliner.  

I am not as angry as I would have thought (probably because it doesn’t involve any of my favorite drivers).  Maybe I am becoming a more objective race fan–at least that’s what I would like to think.  When the whole “have at it” mantra was issued I wondered where the line was going to be drawn before NASCAR said that’s enough boys.  I guess we now have our answer race fans.