A Bad Move: Edwards takes blame for accident

TALLAGEDA, Ala.

Carl Edwards -- who made the finish to last week's Kansas City stop so dramatic -- did indeed have a spectacular encore move for yesterday's Amp Energy 500.

Only this time Edwards wasn't even close to pulling it off.

On lap 175 of the 188-lapper, Edwards was bump-drafting teammate Greg Biffle at the head of the pack, in a fierce duel for the lead among more than a dozen drivers. And Edwards hit Biffle once too often at just the wrong moment, triggering a huge crash that upset the entire Chase for the Sprint Cup. Car owner Jack Roush's third man in the Chase, Matt Kenseth, was also taken out.

Edwards quickly took the blame for his crash: "I was just pushing Greg as hard as I could. It was my fault. I apologize to everyone who got caught up in that wreck. It was my fault. I know Matt's mad….

"I'm always worried about the idiots when we come here … and today it was me."

Biffle tried to brush it off as just Talladega: "I think Carl tried to give us a little help in the center of the corner.

"I felt we drove really smart all day ... but you just can't expect anything out of Talladega.

"I know it will hurt us in the points, but we've got six more. And we ran good at Charlotte in the spring."

Roush, after losing his three title challengers, said: "I guess Carl just got into the back of Greg too hard.

"Some days are harder than others. And this is a hard one.

"These cars are organized so the front and rear bumpers match up well, and NASCAR lets people push each other through the corners."

Kevin Harvick, also taken out, was incensed and blamed Edwards "for tearing up most of the field.

"It's just Talladega. You've got a 50-50 chance of getting out of here OK."

The Edwards incident and blown tires were the stories of the afternoon.

Title contender Denny Hamlin took one of the hardest licks, when he crashed while leading after his right-front tire blew in the middle of the corner. "That's as hard an impact as you can have, 180 mph," Dale Jarrett said.

NASCAR's safety improvements, particularly the soft Safer Barrier outside wall, may well have saved Hamlin's life. "Denny's OK, he's just got a bad headache and a bruised foot," car owner J.D. Gibbs said.

Hamlin apparently suffered a concussion and may have been held at a local hospital overnight, but track officials offered no update.

Too many races this season have had tire issues, most notably the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, where NASCAR had to throw yellows every 10 laps to allow drivers to change tires.

Excessively high right-side tire pressures might have been part of the tire problem here, according to one crew chief. Higher tire pressures will apparently reduce rolling resistance of the tires and provide a little more speed.

Another crew chief suggested there might have been an improper fit between the tire and the safety inner liner.

Right-side tires have been issues at several tracks, apparently because the design of the winged car puts more strain on the right-side tires.

David Reutimann blew a tire 150 miles into the race, and Jeff Gordon got the worst of it, hitting the outside wall. And Johnson's front bumper was also damaged in the incident.

"No chance of us winning this race and gaining any points on anyone," Gordon said. "We'd gotten shuffled to the back, and we were trying to hook up, but we couldn't."

Minutes later came the first big one: Brian Vickers, battling Dale Earnhardt Jr., for the lead, blew a right-front tire and triggered a massive pileup, which took out Martin Truex Jr., Kasey Kahne, Jamie McMurray, Mike Skinner, Terry Labonte and Tony Raines.

"I felt like a bomb exploded in my right-front tire," Vickers said. "It didn't cut; it just exploded."

NASCAR put out the red flag for the cleanup.

Several drivers, including Jeff Burton, made almost miraculous escapes.

"Brian's right-front tire just exploded. Bam. Like a shotgun going off," Truex said.

One of many great saves was by Juan Pablo Montoya, who was upset at getting chopped off by David Ragan.

Another save was by Mike Wallace, when his right-rear blew.

"When tires explode like that, there is a problem," Jimmie Johnson said.

Goodyear's Rick Heinrich, the company's NASCAR product manager, called the tire problems perplexing because he said that these are the same tires that performed problem-free here in April.

"There are a lot of questions we have right now, a lot of things to be considered when you have a performance issue with the tire.

"That's what we're doing right now, gathering all those facts. We're looking at what material has come off the racetrack -- tire parts, and tires that have come off the car ... trying to put everything together and find some correlation, to come up with a definite explanation."

Goodyear has a major tire test this week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with perhaps as many as 16 cars there, to find a good tire for next season's race there. However, Goodyear has never said exactly what the problem at Indianapolis was to begin with.