Carl Edwards Restart Gate, The Newest Drama in NASCAR

During the Richmond race last Saturday night, those last 50 laps or so saw fortunes come and go, but none so much as the Carl Edwards snafu that took place when he took off too early on the green flag.

But did he goof or get overtly over aggressive?  Depending on who you read, different names/numbers were on the leader board in the infield.

It seems at one point, the infield leader board showed Carl Edwards as the leader, and when the race restarted on lap 319, Edwards took that to heart.

But then later Tony Stewart said that after the caution, they were the first to line up after the pit stops that were under caution and when he looked, saw that he was the leader on the board.

Oh, that pesky board.

Looking around the web (Twitter, Facebook and the myriad of hundreds of other social platforms), here's what bits I caught:

At one point, the leader board did seem to show Edwards leading.  A few folk relayed that message around to the team members.  (Yet I'm thinking, if you know you pulled out of the pits 2nd, why aren't you thinking this one through?)

But then what I heard was that while the cars were scuffing/warming up the tires under caution, Edwards car pulled a bit in front of Stewart's car and the leader board, being live apparently, registered this change, and some folks had bad timing when they looked up to see who was supposed to be where.

We've seen that a million times, the pair of lines of cars coming down the track, the cars swerving madly (so it looks) left and right to get the rubber schmootz off the tires, getting ready for the restart.  Right?

And when they do that, either line can incidentally scoot out in front of the other one for just a second or two.  No one is worried about places during this phase of the lap, because it's under caution.  The critical time of the race is when the flag flies.  Then you need to be in the right spot on the track.

So it was bad timing when then Edwards team members and Carl, looked up to see where they were at.

-

The other issue was that Carl "started" the race way too early, before the approved acceleration or start line zone on the track where the competitors in the front row can put the pedal to the metal.  Yea, he left a wee bit too early.

With that said, another mistake that could be a costly one, come this November, if Carl Edwards is contending once again.  This could be the one moment he looks back and kicks himself.  Or, like last season, pick one!  Any one moment last season, had he inched out one more position in any of the races last year would have captured him the championship.

--

NASCAR-Bits-and-Pieces.com on Twitter & Facebook .

- -