BRISTOL, Tenn. -- It's 9:15 a.m. at Bristol Motor Speedway, and still cold enough that each breath expels a smoky plume. Nationwide cars are being pushed from their narrow garage area to the frontstretch pit road, in preparation for qualifying later in the morning. The public address announcer is already hard at work, rattling off announcements about an upcoming track walk and a contest to win a pace car for the few bundled-up diehards shivering in their grandstand seats.

“

I think the biggest thing coming out of that meeting is that now, I think, Brad and I understand one another a little better. I think we're going to be able to just go forward and go racing, and that's what this is all about.

”

-- CARL EDWARDS

The real action on this Saturday, though, isn't on the race track -- at least not yet. It's going on behind the opaque windows of the black and gold Sprint Cup hauler, where Carl Edwards, Brad Keselowski, and their respective car owners are meeting with NASCAR officials in an attempt to end the running feud that two weeks ago sent Keselowski's car airborne and landed Edwards on three week's probation. The whole situation has mushroomed into a national story, and its dénouement has begun to feel like some stock-car version of the summit at Yalta.

Which is why roughly 25 media members are milling around the outside of the hauler, holding cameras and voice recorders and notebooks in frozen fingers, watching the shadows on the other side of the mirrored sliding doors and waiting for the principles to emerge. The most-asked question this weekend at Bristol wasn't over who was going to win the Food City 500 on Sunday, but what time are Carl and Brad meeting with NASCAR on Saturday morning? The sanctioning body, understandably, was hesitant to provide an exact time, so reporters were left to guess -- something they do very well. Given that both drivers were taking part in a Nationwide qualifying session that started at 9:45 a.m., the consensus seemed to be about 9:15. Close. The major players arrived shortly after 9, and in media circles word traveled faster than a Jimmie Johnson pole run.

So by 9:30, there was a veritable horde outside, one swollen in size by the presence of photographers, a few NASCAR officials, and a number of onlookers curious about what was going on. The two drivers were in there, presumably hashing out their differences with NASCAR president Mike Helton, VP for competition Robin Pemberton, and Cup Series director John Darby. Each time the mirrored doors slid opened, dozens of heads popped upright, bodies tensed in anticipation of the rush -- but it was just an official or a public-relations representative. False alarm.

Everyone watched the clock, knowing that the drivers couldn't stay inside much longer. An engine fired. The first Nationwide qualifier, Jason Leffler, took to the race track. They'd be coming out any minute now, unless things had gone so thermonuclear that NASCAR was willing to make Edwards and Keselowski miss their qualifying spots and start in the rear. Goodness, a treaty hadn't taken this long to hammer out since Carter and Brezhnev finalized SALT II.

Finally, the doors opened. Edwards and Keselowski, both smiling and clad in their firesuits, emerged together. No time to talk, though -- they each had early draws in Nationwide qualifying, and literally sprinted to their cars. Jack Roush, though, had a few minutes. The media crowd squeezed around Edwards' car owner, whose words were nearly drowned out by the now-constant engine noise. Pressed close to the Roush Fenway co-owner, you realize his trademark Fedora isn't brown, but olive green.

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"Carl and Brad both said things that would indicate that they're willing to put it behind them and let bygones be bygones, to give one another racing room, and that's what's needed," Roush said. "They need to give one another a little extra room for awhile."

Did they see eye-to-eye? "No," Roush answered, honestly, "but I think that they will give one another enough respect that we won't see another occurrence like [Atlanta]. I think Carl is not likely to have incidental contact with Brad and cause a wreck, and I think Brad is not likely to have incidental contact with Carl and cause a wreck in the foreseeable future."

Then, like a herd of pack animals, the media horde was on the move -- to the backstretch pit road, where the Nationwide cars were being parked after their qualifying attempts. Strangely enough -- and terribly convenient for reporters -- Edwards and Keselowski went out back-to-back, and parked right next to each other. At one point the two former combatants exchanged a few words across the roof of Keselowski's No. 22 car, which ultimately won the pole.

Was that a moment of tangible détente? Had a truce been declared? Maybe not. "Just asking how each others' cars were," Keselowski said.

The peace process itself, the Penske Racing driver said, was an "evolving discussion," leading you to wonder if the two will ever be in accord. But hey, they don't have to like each other. Evidently, they only have to stay away from each other, at least enough to avoid a repeat of what happened two weeks ago.

"Carl and I have talked about leaving each other more room," Keselowski said, "but I guess when it comes down to it, it never works out. It's racing. The biggest thing to me is, incidents are going to happen because we race against each other 60, 70 times a year. And we're almost always running well, so we're going to run by each other. We just have to each build up a tolerance."

A scant 10 feet away, Edwards sounded more hopeful. "Everything went really well," he said. "I think the biggest thing coming out of that meeting is that now, I think, Brad and I understand one another a little better. I think we're going to be able to just go forward and go racing, and that's what this is all about. It was really cool to be able to talk with Jack and Roger [Penske] and Brad all at once. We laughed. We cried. In the end, I think it's going to be good."

And with that, the Great Bristol Summit of 2010 -- and hopefully, this entire Edwards vs. Keselowski saga -- came to an end. There was no official bury-the-hatchet moment, no grip-and-grin for the cameras, no attempt to mask the fact that serious differences between these two drivers still exist. Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski, a headstrong veteran and an unapologetic rookie, may never find anything approaching common ground. For now, keeping their distance and using their heads seems progress enough.

"The guys agreed they're going to race hard, fair, and give themselves some room on the race track so we don't become the poster boys every weekend on what's happening," said Penske, Keselowski's car owner. "I said, 'hey, at the end of races, if we're racing for the lead with a lap or two to go, you're going to have to run hard. But try to stay out of each other's way during the race.' It was a good conversation. They're both good guys. It's great to have an environment where we can sit down."

Back over at the Cup hauler, the scene had changed considerably. The media contingent had drifted off to other things. A few crew chiefs stood in a circle talking, a few fans watched Nationwide qualifying on the video screen atop the scoring tower. A lone NASCAR official sat in a director's chair. All was quiet -- at least, until the next time a driver is summoned inside.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

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