The final lap of Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 at the Talladega Superspeedway was one of the most exciting, thrilling and memorable endings to a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in years, yet it was also one of the most frightening. As Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowki came through the tri-oval for the final time, few would have expected the No. 99 to end up flying into the catch fence while Keselowski drove off to the win.

The incident was eerily similar to last fall’s race at Talladega, when Regan Smith made the move on Tony Stewart driving through the tri-oval. Much like Keselowski, Smith first looked high then dove to the low side to make the pass for the lead. Knowing the move was coming, Stewart blocked the pass and forced Smith below the yellow line. Smith crossed the finish line first, yet was penalized by NASCAR and was relegated to the 18th-spot. So what did everyone in the garage learn from that incident? Sunday’s finished showed exactly that.

Knowing they were clear of Ryan Newman and Dale Earnhardt Jr., coming off Turn 4 Keselowski and Edwards raced towards the checkered flag. With Keselowski pushing Edwards from behind, the young driver knew he had only one shot to make the move, yet understood he could not make the same mistake Smith made last October. Refusing to give an inch, when Edwards threw the block, Keselowski held fast and the No. 99 went spinning backwards. 

“I felt I thought I knew Carl well enough to know that he wouldn't go all the way down; apparently I did not,” Keselowski explained looking back on the last lap. “But I knew I had to hold the spot. You know, certainly, I was thinking of Regan Smith more than just when the moment came, but I was thinking of him the whole weekend. Not necessarily specific to winning the race, but running anywhere in the field, whether that's for 12th on the last lap or not.

“So we all know the rules, and we know how to take advantage of them, and I guess we all have to look in the mirror and decide what we are going to do when we are faced with those decisions,” the young driver added. “I've said right along that I am not in a position to lift. I was not going to lose. I was not going to lift and hold my ground and consequences be damned.”

For Edwards, who looked to be on his way to his first restrictor-plate victory and first of the 2009 season, Keselowski’s move was clean and a result of NASCAR’s rule book. After taking one of the scariest rides in recent memory - and scariest of his career - Edwards pointed the blame not at Keselowski, but instead at the rule NASCAR has put in place.

“First of all, I've got to tell my wife and my mom I'm fine,” Edwards said after his scary incident. “Brad was pushing, he's doing everything he can. I saw him go high. I went high. He goes low right here and I didn't realize he got that far, so I went low to block a little bit and he was already there, so I turned around backwards. At this point I'm thinking, 'Boy, I wish this made out of liquid gel material,' and then I'm very fortunate we hit the wall in a way it didn't crush my roll cage down on my neck because that would have been a lot worse.”

NASCAR enforces the yellow line rule only at the restrictor-place tracks of Talladega and Daytona. Put in place in effort to keep drivers from driving wildly and throwing blocks, the rule - especially after last year’s predicament with Smith and Stewart - was the direct cause of Sunday’s nearly devastating incident.

When drivers know they will be penalized for passing below the yellow line for the win, that shows - as many drivers vocalized following last year’s event - that if you are in second and put in a situation where the leader throws a block, the best thing to do is hold your line and hope for the best. The problem is, at nearly 200 mph that can make for some extremely dangerous situations.

“The yellow line is there to prevent us from running underneath us and prevent us from being crazy. But the bottom line is, that's who we are,” added Keselowski. “We are all crazy racecar drivers and we are going to run into each other. That yellow line could be six foot high or six foot low and would we run into each other. That's what we do. It's a give and take sport and as races go on, it's a challenge of who is going to lift and who is not, and it's testing each other every moment.

“But if the yellow line was not there, I would have gone underneath it, yeah, for sure,” Keselowski admitted. “But he probably would have blocked even lower and it would probably have been the same thing. So, who knows? I would probably have blocked to the grass, I guess is what I'm trying to say. At some point you're just going to keep going and going and going, and if I could have gone to the grass to win it, he would have gone to the pit road to block me. That's just what racing is, that's what we do.”

“They could put up a wall on the inside of the racetrack that says: You're going hit the wall if you go this low,” third-place finisher Ryan Newman, who made contact with Edwards flying car, said. “It has nothing to do with that. It's just we need to keep the cars down on the ground once they get turned around.”

Understanding this style of racing is exciting for the fans, Edwards believes it is time to take another look at the current rules in place and make an educated and thought out change to prevent incidents like this from happening again.

“I don't know how I'd change this racing,” Edwards said. “I know it's a spectacle for everybody and that's great and all, but it's not right to ask all these guys to come out and do this. What if the car goes up in the grandstands and kills 25 people? You know what I mean? At some point, they've got to say, 'Look, we've got to change this around a little bit.'

“NASCAR just puts us in this box,” he added. “Brad did a great job. Congrats to him on the win, but they put us in this box and we'll race like this until we kill somebody and then they'll change it, but I'm just glad nobody got hurt today. I'm glad the car didn't go up in the grandstands and hurt somebody.”

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