Done proper way, nothing wrong with bump-and-run (cont'd)

Now, that's not to say that guys should start hacking on one another without consequence. You don't do this on the supertracks where any kind of contact can have disastrous results. You don't do this to intentionally take someone out. You don't do this if you're not good enough to avoid wrecking the guy in the process. But if you're at a place like Bristol or Martinsville or Richmond, and you possess the requite level of talent and reflex and hand-eye coordination that allows you to apply just enough pressure and get the guy just loose enough, and if you're in the final laps and it's clear your only chance of winning is the front bumper -- hey, it's there for a reason, right?

What goes around ...

Kyle Busch wasn't happy with Carl Edwards following the Bristol race. Dave Rodman says post-race actions and words can come back to haunt you.

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• Video: Tempers flare

Strip the thing of all the emotion that surrounds it. Get past the anger and the finger-pointing. Remove all the bluster about, well, I hit him because he hit me. What you have left is raw strategy, like drawing up plays in the dirt.

"What Carl did, that was absolutely within reason," Johnson said. "If you're intentionally trying to crash someone and cause harm and take them out of a points-earning position, NASCAR will get involved at that point. What took place was just good racing."

It's not for everybody. Jeff Burton has made the point of saying he doesn't race people that way, and he's widely respected for it, and that's fine. But that doesn't mean everyone who does it is a jerk or a lout or a cheater, anymore than a baserunner who barrels over the catcher trying to jar the ball loose is a bad guy. Done the right way, in the right place, and within the framework of NASCAR's (admittedly vague) rulebook, the bump-and-run is a legal move. Find me athletes in any other sport who will bypass legal tactics because they don't want to be perceived a certain way.

But perception often clouds reality, and the perception held by many coming out of Bristol is that Carl Edwards didn't win the right way. Please. Say what you want about the post-race fracas, but we've rarely seen the bump-and-run executed better. Busch's car barely wiggled, moving up the racetrack just enough for the No. 99 to get underneath. Even Johnson, a two-time defending series champion, called it a "pretty smooth" move. Because it was, the perfect summation of a racetrack and a sport build upon close, physical contact. Maybe eventually, the doubters out there will put their squeamishness aside and feel the same way.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.