Carl Edwards' Completely Unnecessary Payback Attempt

On lap 41 of the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Carl Edwards was nudged by Brad Keselowski, which sent the No. 99 Scotts/Aflac Ford into the wall and eventually, Joey Logano. 

Edwards spent most of the rest of the race in the garage, but came back toward the end of it to rack up additional points.

Keselowski was having by far his strongest race in his new ride—the No. 12 Mopar/FloTV Dodge—for Roger Penske Racing.

With five laps to go, Edwards, who was 156 laps down, caught up to Keselowski, who was running in the sixth position.  Edwards tried to hit Keselowski but missed, and almost crashed again.  The next lap, Edwards hit Keselowski and sent him airborne, causing the roof of the car to smash into the wall. 

Keselowski's best run of the 2010 season turned out to be a 36th place finish. 

NASCAR parked—or ejected—Edwards for the remainder of the race.

Now I'm sure everyone remembers the incident these two had last year at Talladega when on the last lap, Edwards attempted to cut in front of Keselowski. The young rookie stood his line and sent Edwards flipping into the crash gate above the wall, but this incident was unintentional.

As the video replays showed, Edwards deliberately turned the steering wheel toward the rear of Keselowski's car, and he essentially admitted to intentionally wrecking him in the post-race interview.

Now if Edwards was in seventh place at the time, or if Keselowski was also a multitude of laps down, then this would be just another notch in the Edwards-Keselowski rivalry which also spans to the Nationwide series. 

But as I said earlier, Edwards was 156 laps down and Keselowski was in sixth. Edwards cost Keselowski 29 spots and a large number of points.

Hopefully, Edwards also cost himself a race or two.

Sure, payback is normal in NASCAR, but not when you wreck a car that is over 30 spots ahead of you. Edwards should have gotten his revenge at Bristol Motor Speedway in two weeks, but he became too anxious. 

NASCAR should do the right thing and suspend Edwards for at least one race. His actions could have killed someone, whether it be Keselowski or a spectator hit with a piece of debris. 

Cousin Carl is turning into an evil twin, and it's giving NASCAR a gigantic black eye.