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Roger Penske may have yet another star in the making in the person of young Parker Kligerman.  While everyone focuses on the continued presence of Cup drivers in Nationwide, and other prospects like Trevor Bayne, Kligerman has been quietly racing and finishing well.

So far this season, Kligerman has only seven starts in the Nationwide Series although he has attempted ten races.  He’s driven for underfunded Smith Ganassi Racing and gotten a few starts in Penske equipment masked as K-Automotive #26 Dodges.  While the three early season DNQs certainly don’t look good on his resume, his last four starts (Daytona, Chicago, Bristol, Montreal) all turned into very impressive runs.  After finishing 13th at both Daytona and Chicago, Kligerman has cracked the top ten in his last two races with a ninth at Bristol and an eighth at Montreal.  Not bad considering he was up against Cup regulars at Bristol and a slew of road course aces at Montreal.

Kligerman signed on as a Penske development driver for the 2009 season, and then spent the rest of the year dominating the ARCA RE/MAX Series.  He brought home nine wins and lost the championship battle to Justin Lofton by only five points.  His very good ARCA season earned him the opportunity to run two races for Penske in the Nationwide Series towards the end of ’09, and Kligerman again didn’t disappoint.  In his first ever NNS attempt, he sat on the pole, led laps, and brought his car home with a top 20 finish.

For 2010, Kligerman has been running a limited NNS schedule on very little support, but he is starting to make a very solid case for why Roger Penske & Co. should find a more permanent home for his future.  The young driver from Connecticut has been overshadowed this season by his Penske teammates Brad Keselowski and Justin Allgaier, who currently sit first and fourth in the NNS championship standings, but his future appears to be no less bright.

Let’s hope a full slate of Nationwide races in a fully supported Penske car await Kligerman for 2011.

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Filed under: Carl Edwards, NASCAR Crashes, NASCAR Fights, Sprint Cup, NASCAR

Sure, every sport has dirty players.

Think of the now-retired Bruce Bowen in basketball, Rodney Harrison of the New England Patriots in football, A.J. Pierzynski in baseball or any number of hockey goons.

But most team sports limit the amount of time athletes have to spend competing against those dirty players. No matter how bad he may be, the schedule dictates that the number of games that, say, Kobe Bryant might be defended by Bruce Bowen, is minimal.

That's true for every sport but one -- stock car racing.

Racing is unique because the best athletes compete against each other in every race, week after week after week. That means that the dirtiest driver has more of an impact on the sport of racing than any dirty athlete in any other sport.

So who is the dirtiest driver in NASCAR right now, the dirty player that can impact dirty play more than any other?

I'll tell you. It's Brad Keselowski, the driver of the No. 12 Penske Racing Verizon Wireless Dodge. Keselowski makes Mike Tyson's ear biting look tame, the worst days of Bill Laimbeer come off as mere child's play. How bad is Keselowski? I'd call him a dirt bag, but dirt would be offended.

 

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Were you booing or cheering Friday night?

There is nothing like a crowd at Bristol displaying their like, or in this case dislike, for a driver. Their opinion is deafening. And honestly, it was fantastic.

No matter your feelings toward Kyle Busch, chances are you aren’t indifferent about him. And he’s exactly what NASCAR needs right now – a polarizing figure who can win.

For all the improvements NASCAR has made to the sport in the last several months, there really isn’t anything they can do get moments like that – most especially, there is nothing they can do to cultivate drivers like that.

Ed Hinton wrote a great column last week about his search for what plagued NASCAR fans. His determination? NASCARmyalgia. You all have aches, but no one really knows for sure what the problem is. It’s funny, but it rings so completely true.

I think moments like Friday night are a good remedy, but we need more guys like Kyle Busch – that is more guys who are willing to express themselves and relish the position they have in the sport, and then back it up with wins – to do that on Sunday. Fans desperately want and need drivers they can cheer for, and against right now.

Thankfully for us NASCAR is allowing drivers to show a little personality on track, which is translating to personality off the track. While the action this weekend was unfortunately on Friday night (and Wednesday night too), the conflict was still apparent on Saturday night. Did you hear the driver intros? Awesome.

Right now Kyle is injecting a little bit of spice into a sport that desperately needs it. While I think it’s hard to disagree that the racing is some of the best its ever been, it’s hard to say, personality wise, things are as good as they could be.

Though things aren’t perfect right now, and they really never will be, these moments of dogged fight, and boiled over frustrations really make it all worth while.

Thank goodness we’ve got a guy like Kyle Busch to help bring some drama into our beloved sport. Now where is everybody else?

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Filed under: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Mark Martin, Sprint Cup, Hendrick Motorsports, NASCAR

Jimmie Johnson took home top honors for the Hendrick Motorsports camp in Sunday's Carfax 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Michigan International Speedway.

That's not surprising, Johnson being a four-time defending champion of the series and all. What is surprising, though, is that Johnson took best-of-Hendrick honors at Michigan with a lowly 12th-place finish.

Thanks to the team's sub-par showing, the Cup series hasn't seen a Hendrick-owned Chevrolet finish in the top-five for four consecutive races. That span -- races at Indianapolis, Pocono, Watkins Glen and Michigan -- marks the first time since 2002 that Hendrick hasn't been represented in the top five for four consecutive weeks.

The last Hendrick top five was on July 10 at Chicagoland, when Jeff Gordon finished third.

Gordon, despite starting 36th after his worst qualifying effort in a year and a half, looked to be the one carrying the Hendrick banner at Michigan with a mid-race march that moved him to second. After a poor restart dropped him back, Gordon suffered a cut tire and enough contact from Jeff Burton to change the aerodynamic handling of his No. 24.

 

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Filed under: Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Nationwide Series, Danica Patrick, NASCAR

Brad Keselowski found a new way to avoid getting wrecked by Carl Edwards -- running away from him.

That's exactly what Keselowski did on the final restart with 10 laps to go in the Nationwide race at Michigan International Speedway Saturday.

Meanwhile, Danica Patrick struggled with a loose race car but finished the race in 27th place, four laps down.

Keselowski restarted the race in second, but leader Edwards chose the outside lane, and it was not the best choice. Keselowski ran hard and low into turn one on the inside, and by the time he emerged from turn two, he was well clear of his nemesis.

Two laps later, Keselowski was two-tenths of a second ahead, and he gradually stretched it out from there, beating Edwards by at least 30 car lengths.

"We just fought back from adversity with an awesome Dodge Challenger," Keselowski said in victory lane. "These new cars are sweet to drive and they're even better to drive when this Dodge Challenger is that fast."

 

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Filed under: Carl Edwards, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, NASCAR Fights, NASCAR

SPEEDWAY, Ind. -- Grinning from ear to ear and sporting a new crew cut, Carl Edwards cheerily sat down to face a crowd of reporters even larger than the group waiting across the room to interview NASCAR's most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

After making himself comfortable, Edwards leaned in to the microphone and with a huge smile, dead-panned, "You guys see that race last week?''

Everyone laughed.

Good ol' Carl -- NASCAR's Eddie Haskell.

Like Haskell, the too-good-to-be true kid next door from the 1950s and 1960s TV show 'Leave It To Beaver,' who was mischievous when the grown-ups left the room, Edwards is proving more complicated than he lets on, too.

Edwards has endeared himself to fans with his trademark victory back flips, smooth style and up-for-anything disposition. He's articulate and charming -- a sponsor's dream with made-for-TV good looks and personality. And he knows how to get around a race track, winning the 2007 Nationwide Series championship and collecting 16 wins in the Sprint Cup Series.

Lately though, Edwards is making headlines as NASCAR's new "bully" who wrecks his rivals in the name of a win, prompting fans to wonder if he is really the gentlemanly sports hero atop the white horse, or NASCAR's new villain.

 

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Filed under: Carl Edwards, NASCAR

SPEEDWAY, Ind. -- Smiling and cordial, Brad Keselowski met with reporters in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame and Museum Friday and said he wasn't too surprised that NASCAR penalized Carl Edwards and himself for rough driving in the Nationwide Series race at Gateway International Speedway last weekend.

In fact, he considers the drivers' season-long probation a blessing in disguise.

"To me what that says is that NASCAR didn't want me intentionally retaliating and wrecking Carl, which is great, now they've taken that away from me,'' said Keselowski, noting that everyone would have expected him to escalate the season-long feud.

He said he and Edwards, who intentionally wrecked him out on the final lap of the race have not spoken since the Saturday night's accident.

"If I thought it would be productive,'' Keselowski said of his willingness to meet with Edwards and clear the air.

"But obviously, whatever talk we had at Bristol (Tenn.) earlier wasn't productive.''

 

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Filed under: Carl Edwards, Sprint Cup

Carl Edwards certainly has been full of what marketing-types like to call "crossover appeal."

He's been the star of AFLAC's main Olympic commercial. He's glanced the cover of Men's Health magazine while becoming a spokesman for healthy fast food chain Subway.

And, of course, he's become a favorite of the "SportsCenter" highlight reels with his trademark backflip after a win.

But Edwards, ever the effervescent spokesman and intelligent thinker when asked questions in news conferences, has obviously shown to have a much darker side on-track at times -- with none more evident than what he was penalized for Wednesday by NASCAR.

Edwards lost 60 Nationwide Series driver points, earned a $25K fine and will be on probation through the end of the calendar year for wrecking Brad Keselowski on the final lap of Saturday night's Nationwide race just outside St. Louis.

 

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After a couple of days of what I’m sure was intense hand wringing and some serious questions, NASCAR announced Wednesday the punishment for Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski after their last lap melee at Gateway. As I’m sure most of you saw, NASCAR docked Edwards 60 driver points and fined him $25,000 and docked Jack Roush 60 owner points. Both Edwards and Keselowski were placed on probation until the end of the year.

After the announcement Twitter was a buzz with speculation about what this would mean for NASCAR’s ‘boys, have at it’ policy. Many decried this as inconsistency, others said it would have a chilling effect, and still some applauded it.

Wherever you stand on the penalty, I thought the insistence by some that this would kill the new, more open policy was interesting – especially after the intense discussion on the matter leading up to NASCAR’s Wednesday afternoon announcement.

I personally tend to think this penalty won’t have a great affect on the current atmosphere. Certainly I think Carl’s penalty will make guys think twice about paying somebody back on track, but in the heat of the moment I believe we’re still going to see retribution.

Perhaps if this had been the first penalty issued after NASCAR instituted the policy it would have not changed the way things operated. Guys would have seen that NASCAR wasn’t serious about the change. Consider though what NASCAR has allowed drivers to do this season.

Denny Hamlin was wrecked under caution after Clint Bowyer returned to the track – Bowyer got probation. Carl Edwards returned to the track after getting repaired at Atlanta and wrecked Brad Keselowski – Keselowski ended up on his top in the fence and Edwards got parked and put on probation.

Drivers have seen what NASCAR has allowed others to get away with. The key lesson to all of this is, if you have spoken with John Darby, Mike Helton or both already regarding an incident with a fellow competitor and they’ve told you to cool it, you better cool it. If something blatant goes down on track you’re probably going to have a harsher penalty as a result.

Still NASCAR knows what a success this policy has been, and how good the racing has been this season. The last thing they want to do is murder the thing that has helped them get to this point – and I think most drivers know that.

Some More Penalty Thoughts

I think it’s important to remember Carl is a repeat offender – and these two have a long history. Was this weekend’s wreck any more or less blatant than anything anyone else has done this season? I don’t really think so. I do think though at some point NASCAR was going to have to draw a line and say “enough is enough.” This just happened to be the point.

Was it inconsistent? Maybe in the sense that they’ve chosen not to punish offenders quite so harshly this season (Carl among those). It’s unfair to compare this to previous seasons though as NASCAR was operating under a different policy. That said, NASCAR could stand to use some consistency. At times they’re definitely making up penalties as they go.

It hurts the credibility of the sport when the sanctioning body isn’t consistently enforcing things, or drawing clear distinctions ahead of time for what is and is not OK.

I know we and everyone else has spent a lot of time talking about this, this week (and generally we hate to have two posts of similar topics on the same week), but we like to be able to foster and facilitate discussion. Overall I think this week has been interesting in the development of this new doctrine – though I honestly don’t believe anything will change.

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Filed under: Carl Edwards, NASCAR Crashes, Nationwide Series, NASCAR

(AP) -- NASCAR docked star Carl Edwards 60 Nationwide Series driver points, fined him $25,000 and placed both Edwards and Brad Keselowski on probation through Dec. 31 following their last-lap antics at Gateway International Raceway.

Jack Roush, owner of Edwards' No. 60 Ford, was also docked 60 owner points after the latest run-in between the feuding drivers ended with a chain reaction accident that left Keselowski's No. 22 Dodge in tatters and another nine cars sustaining damage last weekend.

Edwards and Keselowski were battling for the lead on the final lap when Keselowski nudged Edwards out of the way coming out of Turn 2. Edwards returned the favor a few seconds later, sending Keselowski into the outside wall coming out of Turn 4. Keselowski slid toward the inside wall before being struck by several opponents, his car a shattered mess as it crossed the finish line in 14th while Edwards celebrated his second win of the season.

Though NASCAR has publicly encouraged drivers to police themselves by encouraging a "boys, have at it" philosophy, director of competition Robin Pemberton said Keselowski and Edwards took things a little too far even though Edwards maintained afterward he was not at fault. NASCAR disagreed.

 

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