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BRISTOL, Tenn. Kyle Busch believed Carl Edwards would offer up an empty apology after Edwards bumped his way past Busch to win Saturday night's Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Wrong.
“I feel like I was extremely justified to do what I did,” Edwards said after his bump in Turn 1 on Lap 470 ended Busch's streak of 415 laps led and propelled Edwards toward his third victory in the past four Sprint Cup races.
“I needed to do it, and that's the way it went,” the unrepentant Edwards said. “Let's make it real clear, I'm not apologizing for it and that's it. I feel like the score is even and it just cost him more than it cost me at the time and that's the way it is.”
Busch grabbed the lead with a dazzling move off Turn 2 on Lap 55, blasting from third to first by passing Edwards and Jeff Gordon while putting Juan Pablo Montoya a lap down in the same swoop. From that point until the critical moment of the race – perhaps, even, the season – on Lap 470, Edwards had pursued Busch's No. 18 Toyota.
“Kyle had the fastest car on the long runs all night,” Edwards said. “My only chance to get him was on the restarts.”
Edwards pulled almost even at one point, trying moves both inside and outside but failing to make the pass work. On a restart after a yellow on Lap 452 Busch got a good jump, but another yellow on Lap 462 gave Edwards one more try. The green flew to start Lap 467, and after completing three laps Edwards went into Turn 1 with Busch's rear bumper within range.
“A real smart racer explained it to me this way after he wrecked me and I was real mad,” Edwards said. “He said, ‘I just had to look at your rear bumper and decide, would you do this to me? And you had before, so it was a real simple decision.'”
Earlier this year, in a Nationwide Series race at Richmond, Edwards said Busch “just smoked the back bumper of my car and sent me up the race track.”
“Afterward he said, ‘Sorry man, my car was just faster,'” Edwards recalled. “So, in my mind, I had to ask myself when I went down there in the corner, ‘Should I lift and brake early and do the best I can, or should I just kind of give him a little tap and see what happens?' That's the way it went and that's the decision I made.
“I'd do it again.”
Edwards may consider things even after his bump resulted in a sixth Cup win this season, second only to Busch's eight. As you might expect, however, Busch's scorecard reads differently.
“He does that and he'll always come back and say he's sorry,” Busch said. “It's just his normal fashion. That's fine. I've grown to know that now.”
Busch registered his disapproval of the bump-and-run on the cool-down lap, pulling alongside Edwards' Ford in Turn 2 and delivering a rap against the driver's side. Edwards immediately struck back, turning right into the quarterpanel of Busch's Toyota and turning him around.
Busch righted his car and came back to speed, and for a minute it looked like this one wasn't yet over. But he turned down the pit lane as Edwards went to the start-finish line for his celebratory back-flip.
Still, you get the distinct feeling that this is to be continued.
Busch and Edwards have now won 14 of the 24 Cup races this year, including seven of the past nine. Edwards has won three of the past four and is within 30 bonus points (he won't get the bonus points for his Las Vegas win because of a post-race penalty) of Busch heading toward the 10-race Chase for the championship.
“I have a lot of respect for the guy,” Edwards said of Busch. “But we can't give up points when they're right there for us to take.”
After the race, J.D. Gibbs, the president of the Joe Gibbs Racing team that owns Busch's cars, spoke with Edwards.
“He just explained to me that you reap what you sow, which I believe,” Edwards said in recounting the conversation. “I explained to him that that's why it happened that way.”
But is it over?
“I don't know,” Edwards said. “I'm sure it'll be exciting. It's NASCAR and we all want to win really bad. That's for sure.”
