Even though Texas Motor Speedway is located just outside Dallas in Fort Worth, track promoters like to call it No Limit, Texas, population 43 drivers and thousands of fans on race weekends. That label did not disappoint Sunday night when yet another post-race fight broke out involving NASCAR punching bag Brad Keselowski and 4-time Champ Jeff Gordon.
By now, you have seen Gordon and Keselowski coming together, with their cars, on a late restart trying to take the win away from Jimmie Johnson. After making contact going into turn one of the 1.5-mile speedway, Gordon cut down a tire and spun out later on the lap. Gordon would finish 29th, severely damaging his hopes of advancing to the final round of the Chase in Homestead without winning this weekend in Phoenix. Keselowski ended up third. That didn’t sit well with Gordon who went after Kes after the race on pit lane. What transpired was a heated exchange involving everyone from Kevin Harvick, random pit crew from Richard Childress Racing, Hendrick Motorsports, and Penske Racing, as well as NASCAR officials and ESPN pit reporter Jamie Little who was just trying to do her job and interview the contenders. Gordon and Keselowski emerged with bloody lips and soon the brawl went viral on Twitter.
I’m not a fan of Keselowski’s driving style, and neither are most of his fellow drivers on the Sprint Cup circuit. But if Gordon thought that driving wheel-to-wheel with Bad Brad on a late race restart, in a race that the #2 Miller Lite Ford needed to win was going to end clean, he was sorely mistaken. Keselowski has made it clear he would do whatever it takes to win a second championship in three years in the newly modified Chase for the Sprint Cup title. That includes a bump and run. Gordon may have taken the incident to extremes with his post-race actions, but something had to be done. This was the second time in four Chase races that Keselowski had infuriated a fellow Chase contender after Matt Kenseth snuck up and tackled him WWE-style after the Charlotte race last month. The other drivers simply do not respect how Brad drives the car and what he does in order to win. He is taking advantage of the new playoff format that eliminates four drivers after the 3rd, 6th, and 9th races during the Chase, and leads to a four driver shootout for all the marbles in Miami. This kind of racing suits him. It also would have suited another aggressive driver named Dale Earnhardt.
Earnhardt infuriated his fellow drivers and their teams as well. The difference being that Dale had the respect of his competitors and although many would want to tear his head off after getting wrecked for the win one Sunday, they knew Earnhardt was the ambassador of the sport, and the reason thousands of fans packed the race tracks each and every week. So a few days later they would throw back a cold one, talk out their differences, and patch things up. Keselowski is a good thing for the sport, he is a villain. Every story needs villains. But he is no ambassador. Not yet. He must realize that this is not the Saturday night dirt track. A post-race dust up will happen every once in a while, and aggressive driving is exciting but not to the point where driver safety is in question.
Bottom line, I think what happened in Texas was a racing accident; two former Sprint Cup champions under a ton of pressure going head-to-head for the win. Jeff thinks Brad slammed into him. Brad thinks he had the room. Both are right, neither is the primary culprit. Both are blinded by the glare of the Sprint Cup Championship trophy. And the best part for NASCAR is with two races left in the season, this story isn’t over yet… And now they’ve got everyone’s attention.
FORT WORTH, TX – NOVEMBER 02: Jeff Gordon, driver of the #24 Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet, confronts Brad Keselowski, driver of the #2 Miller Lite Ford, following the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on November 2, 2014 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images)
Other notes from Texas…
-Overshadowed by the post-race fight and despite not being in contention for his seventh championship, Jimmie Johnson put on a clinic at Texas Motor Speedway winning his third straight Fall race in Fort Worth. Sporting a special red paint scheme in honor of the red vests that employees of sponsor Lowe’s wear, Johnson pulled away on the final green-white-checkered restart and claimed his fourth win of the season. Johnson’s crew chief Chad Knaus also confirmed after the race that he would continue to work with Johnson next season after weeks of the rumors that the two were not getting along. Winning races in dominating fashion has a way of bringing driver and crew chief together.
-You have to give some credit to Ryan Newman and his young crew chief Luke Lambert for how they have performed this season and in the Chase even though they have not won a race. Newman has quietly put himself into contention with solid finishes in the last four races. Newman entered Texas with 15 Top 10 finishes on the season and placed 15th. Newman never has the fastest car, but his consistency and refusal to go away are keeping him in the title race. He enters Phoenix in third place
in the points.
-Carl Edwards was on his way to a bad day as his career with Roush Fenway Racing winds down. Edwards just did not have any speed and fell two laps behind the leaders, but took advantage of pit strategy late to finish in ninth.
-Denny Hamlin took tire tires on a pit stop with just over 100 laps to go and after restarting in first place, Hamlin fell way back in the pack. It was clearly a gamble that crew chief Darian Grubb took that did not pay off, at the time. Joe Gibbs Racing also got a bad pit stop from Matt Kenseth’s crew when they had trouble with a lugnut on the right front tire. Hamlin was 10th in the final running order with Kenseth 25th. Hamlin and Joey Logano are tied for first in the standings going into the final race of the Eliminator round. Newman and Gordon are third and fourth, while Kenseth, Edwards, Keselowski, and Harvick make up the bottom four. Any of the eight contenders can advance to the final with a win in Phoenix, while any of them can be eliminated with a poor finish or a DNF.
Speed For Thought 