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This is true.

True but you can't say that Earl wouldn't have run him down to the grass anyway. You're just assuming that because of more room there wouldn't have been contact. I mean I'm all for the yellow line rule to be lifted in the closing laps but to say it was 100% to blame for this is completely stupid. You don't know that.

If a driver is wants to block, he is going to block. Yellow line or not---where a car wants to pass, another car will want to block.

We could speculate all night about what MIGHT have happened. For all we know, flipper could've pushed him all the way to the grass to slow him down and then drove away with the win.

We just don't know.

Exactly. If a driver goes to pass, you had to block the lane. This would have been considered dumb if it were lap 8, but it's lap 188. You have to go for the win if you have anything left. The car in front of you is doing everything he could to keep you behind him.

All's fair in love, war and the last lap...

No, but seriously...

I think we all knew that eventually something like this was going to happen. I simply could not believe what I was seeing when it actually did happen though. The yellow line rule came into play for a lot of reasons. Hell, even when most of the back stretch was grass Tony Stewart and Mike Skinner drove each other into said grass and caused a helluva mess. It isn't just the last lap, look at this situation had this crash happened on lap 100. What if Brad and Carl were racing for the lead and the same thing happened? Carl said himself he didn't think Brad had a fender under him. Saying that it was the last lap, or that the yellow line rule should be ignored on the last lap is just half assing the larger problem. Now, there's a lot of if this and if that here, but anything is possible and today certainly demonstrated that. I'm just glad that no one was killed either on the track or in the stands, but I do believe that NASCAR is playing with fire here. The unfortunate thing is I don't think there's a lot that can be done about it. If you eliminate the yellow line, we're back to guys running each other all over the damn place. If you keep the rule, be prepared for this to happen again.

Remember too that Neil Bonnets crash here was very similar to this. Almost the same spot. He got turned, went up and into the catch fence. No yellow line rule and that wreck happened with like 40 or so laps to go.

What won't happen: NASCAR removing, even changing the yellow line rule

What will happen: There will be some retarded knee-jerk aero rules or whatever to slow the cars down and will ruin the racing at the plate tracks for the next 5 years


savor this one, because you can almost bet this will be the last COT plate race of this kind.

I agree, if NASCAR removes the rule, them we will have guys seven wide into turns 1 and 3 causing a massive mess. So, in that case, the rule works if people have something to lose. However, coming to the checkered flag, people are going to do anything to win. With nothing to lose and everything to gain, drivers will act like maniacs to maintain and gain positions. What happened today was a freak incident and it may be many years before we see something like that again, but with NASCAR being so strict about it on the final lap, the chances of it happening again is much more likely with the rule.

I liked it when if you can see the Checkered flag, anything goes. that way Brad could have been forced below the line without repercussion and we would have had an awesome finish without people being in danger

Pretty much.

NASCAR is a company that feeds off of PR and doesn't give a shit about fans or the quality of racing, so it shouldn't surprise me to see something like this.

Why does everyone think they will be 7 wide without the rule? Common sense takes over, and common sense says you can negotiate a turn going in 7 wide

I bet NASCAR really feels stupid today, they took the win away from Regan last year because he was trying to prevent this from happeneing. I'm so proud of Brad doing what he needed to do to win that race legit. Brad was smart enough to know if he dips low he gets d/q'd so he held his ground and ya it was a catostrophic consequence, but he knew he did nothing wrong in the eyes of NASCAR. IMO they need to do away with the yellow line rule all together. Drivers can easily panic when they relaized they are under there, and I'm not suprised more guys have not crashed when they "back off to give the spot back" its just a mess that cannot be solved, simple fact is, its racing

Drivers will do whatever it takes to win. If that means that they will almost go into grass, they will. Can you imagine if someone tries the move Jeff Gordon made on Rusty to win the Daytona 500 today? It could be disastrous. The rule is a good rule to prevent stupid moves that could cause a big mess. I like the rule until the start/finish line is in sight for a win. What we saw today was partly the rules fault, but the rule did not make Carl Edwards make a hard left into Keselowski. Its a good rule that needs tweaking.

I don't think any changes need to be made to the catch fence because it did what it was supposed to do. When Bobby Allison's car flew into the catch fence in 1987, the catch fence looked like a tornado had hit it because a big chunk of it collapsed and the metal was mangled. Today, when Carl Edwards' car hit the catch fence the fence didn't fail and the the injuries to the fans weren't as serious as they were in 1987.

As far as the yellow line rule goes, I don't know if it would have made much of a difference when it came to what happened today.

In the grand scheme of things, I don't think the yellow line rule has changed the number of multi-car crashes on the plate tracks. The "big one" has continued to happen just as frequently as it has before the yellow line rule was put in place.

On an unrelated note, is this the first time a reverse Buschwhack (A Cupwhack in other terms) has ever happened?

I also believe Ambrose at Watkins Glen that did win a race when he's not Cup-level (at the time).

David Gilliland comes up to mind as well.

I have to say that was one of the most exciting finishes I've seen, but I'll stop right there.

I won't call it an awesome finish, because IMO it wasn't. I was really scared shitless and speechless for a while there. I'm glad that car didnt go into the spectator area, really thankfull that the fencing held together. Unfortuantely, nothing is perfect in life and there are some people that were injured. Glad that Carl's ok, I just hope this wreck doesn't shake his motivation, because it was bad, but thankfully nothing more than that.

I know we all love crashes here as well as racing but that was one moment I didn't necessarily enjoy at all. Exciting, but man, that was close.

nothing against Brad though. He did what he was supposed to do, and CArl admits that as well. But I hope some rethinking goes into these cars for the next one. Not much one can do tbh, but something can be done in the aero and tire department.

Or maybe not that far, I guess maybe prohibiting blockin will certainly fix the problem to a certain extent.

does Jamie McMurray count?

that rule should have gone last year

The rule definitely needs to go, as it should never have been implemented. How many times have we actually said "thank goodness we have that yellow line rule"? You cant put 100% of the blame on the rule, but things likely would have happened differently w/o it. (I imagine Brad woulda been farther up alongside Carl by the time they made contact if he could have gone onto the apron).

But...nascar admitting theyre wrong?

I hate the yellow line rule, but I don't think it made much of a difference here. Brad was below Carl, there was no room between the two and Carl turned down onto him. Not sure Brad had enough warning to avoid a wreck even without the yellow line. Carl talking about the track and the rules is just deflecting blame IMO; on any track if you try and block someone who's already alongside you, most of the time you're going to cause a wreck.