NASCAR Opening Day At The Brickyard
by John Wiedemann
7/23/2010

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Speedway, IN - Juan Pablo Montoya returned to the bricks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway just like he left them last year, bad fast.

Leading the charts after the opening practice session for the Brickyard 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race this coming Sunday, Montoya put up a time to beat of 50.883 seconds at a speed of 176.876 mph around the historic track. Jimmy Johnson was second quickest, followed by Max Papis. Gordon only ran one timed lap in practice and it was good enough for fourth fastest. The only driver to win the Brickyard 400 in a Ford, Bill Elliott set the fifth fastest time.

Montoya picked up the pace in the second practice session, topping the charts with a lap of 50.068 seconds and 179.756 mph. Jamie McMurray and Mark Martin were the next two fastest drivers in the session.

Not all the news took place on the track.

David Reutimann, who has raced the past three seasons on a year to year contract, finally received a multi-year contract extension from Michael Waltrip Racing. Reutimann is now signed through the 2012 season. No doubt winning at Chicagoland helped seal the deal. "It's a huge relief," said Reutimann "When you operate year-to-year, it's obviously a different situation. And just because you have a multi-year deal, you gotta go out there and perform. I don't have but one speed, and that's to go as hard as I can all the time, whether it's a contract year or not."

The most talked about subject at the track is the incident between Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski during the Nationwide Series race at Gateway International Raceway last weekend. After Keselowski bumped past Carl Edwards to take the lead on the final lap, Edwards turned left on the straightaway and spun Keselowski into the wall, igniting a multi-car wreck.

Explaining the initial contact Keselowski said, "I got to the corner and I was inside of him going into (turns) one and two. It just slipped a tiny bit and made some contact with him (Edwards). I tried to make sure that we both saved it and we did. To me that's just good racing. That's two race car drivers on edge."

Edwards had a little different perspective saying, "I believe that he did not make a mistake. That was an intentional, I mean, he moved me out of the way to gain an advantage and it almost worked. I believe that he's not being completely honest that that was a mistake. He's too good of a race car driver and I know that."

Regarding the final contact, Edwards continued, "It's not ok to move me out of the way. I didn't get here by allowing anybody to run over me. He took the win away from me and I took it back from him. The only bad part is that other people were involved, and I apologize to those people and I accept my penalty for it. When I was done (last Saturday evening), I walked out of that race track with my head held high"

Edwards was penalized 60 Nationwide Series points, $25,000 and put on probation until December 31, 2010. Keselowski was also put on probation until the end of the year.

Denny Hamlin was asked his impressions of the incident and had this to say, "It's two guys that I really don't agree with at all. I think you're only going to poke the lion long enough before you're going to get bit and Brad and Carl in my opinion was just way overboard and shouldn't have gone that far. I don't agree with either."





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