Talladega concerns prompt Edwards, NASCAR to meet

RICHMOND, Va. -- 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.

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Edwards' car flew into the frontstretch restraining fence Sunday after making contact with the vehicle of race winner Brad Keselowski, and debris injured seven spectators. Although Edwards walked away, two fans were transported to area hospitals. Immediately afterward, the Roush Fenway Racing driver lamented that NASCAR would allow that type of racing on the 2.66-mile restrictor-plate track "until we kill somebody."

After Thursday's meeting with NASCAR, his concerns seemed somewhat assuaged.

"We talked with a group of folks from NASCAR and 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. We've come a long ways in the last however many years, but there's still stuff that can be done. All we did was talk about things that really needed to be done and they're working on ideas of things to be done, so I'm real excited about seeing what they come up with and, hopefully it's stuff that keeps wrecks like that from happening," Edwards said Friday at Richmond International Raceway.

"I learned a lot, and hopefully they learned a little bit about me and the driver's perspective. They said they would talk to some other drivers, which I think would be really good, but I definitely learned about where they're coming from in trying to make the sport the best it can be. We all shook hands and understood, so, hopefully, something comes out of it."

Neither NASCAR nor Roush would specify what officials from the sanctioning body were at the meeting. The sport's competitive brain trust is headquartered in metro Charlotte almost across the street from the Roush shop, while executives like chairman Brian France and president Mike Helton operate out of Daytona Beach.

"Obviously we were concerned about making the racing at the Talladega and Daytona race tracks as safe as they can be for everybody," Roush said. "Carl called me and wanted to have a conversation, I called the folks down there and we agreed to have a conversation, and we shared some ideas."

Edwards wasn't sure what those results might be, although NASCAR officials have addressed perhaps raising the height of the Talladega restraining fence and issuing harsher in-race penalties for aggressive driving. Edwards, who did a round of national talk shows following the incident, also said he didn't regret his strong comments from Sunday.

"That's how I felt, and that's what I believe," he said. "I also believe that there are things that can be done. We're all in this together -- NASCAR, me, the owners, all the other drivers. No one wants to see anybody get hurt, but I think what I said needed to be said, and that's how I felt at the time, and I hope people respect that."

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Edwards isn't the only driver in the Cup Series garage with worries over the racing at Talladega. Ryan Newman, who struck Edwards' vehicle in the last-lap accident, questioned NASCAR's contention that the No. 99 car was settling back to the ground before Newman's oncoming car hit it and sent it airborne.

"We saw two cars that got upside down, all by themselves basically," Newman said, referring to Edwards' car on Sunday and Matt Kenseth's vehicle in the Nationwide race the day before. "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."

Newman wants to see more work done on the roof flaps, which are designed to keep a car on the ground. "They developed the roof flaps in 1992," he said. "It's 17 years later, and they have not changed much at all. We're dealing with a different race car. We're dealing with a wing versus a spoiler. Just put some work in to it. I am not saying that they're far from being perfect, but, I am also saying that it is something that needs to be looked at. Looking at the big picture, we go faster at other race tracks than we do at Talladega. We just don't sustain it for the entire lap, so there is potential for crashes to be bigger at other race tracks."

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president for competition, said earlier this week that the current Sprint Cup chassis has a higher "liftoff speed" and is less apt to become airborne than its predecessor.

"Things will not forever be status quo," Pemberton said. "We will continue to look at things, but this car is better suited than the old car is, and you know, we will continue to look at things. And, quite frankly, these situations that come up from time to time are a one-off, and things that you don't necessarily foresee, and they are hard to recreate. So we will take this and we will evaluate everything the best that we can."