1. NASCAR shouldn’t overreact by suspending Carl Edwards. For the sake of full disclosure, I’ll admit that I grew up in Jefferson City, Missouri, very close to where Edwards honed his racing skills, at Capital Speedway. As a result, I’ve followed his career closely through the truck series at the beginning of this decade and then into Cup and then-Busch series in 2004 and ‘05.

Overall, I think he is good for this sport. He runs aggressively but is respectful of his crew chief, his spotter and most everyone he deals with outside of the race car. He keeps a good attitude most of the time, but he is capable of losing his temper, which is why he confronted Dale Earnhardt Jr. in victory lane a few years ago following a Nationwide series race. However, I have yet to meet a driver who hasn’t overreacted at some point in his career.

What Edwards did in the waning laps Sunday, when he intentionally spun Keselowski’s car, isn’t the way you should handle that situation. The Roush Fenway driver was more than 100 laps behind the leader at the time, and he’s fortunate someone wasn’t injured.

But this is hardly the first time we’ve seen drivers react this way. Stewart seemed to do this kind of thing on a weekly bases a few years ago, and NASCAR responded with probation, double-secret probation and “Don’t do this again because we’re really not kidding this time” probation.

If anything, the sanctioning body is partially to blame for what happened. Before the season opener at Daytona, the Fox Network shot video of several drivers wearing boxing gloves, playing off NASCAR’s history of fights breaking out between drivers and/or crewmen after on-track collisions. And NASCAR told the drivers before the season to “have at it,” hoping to return to a time when the sport was driven by the personalities of Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, Junior Johnson and countless others. (These days, if it weren’t for the firesuit, discerning drivers might be impossible, because they generally say the same things each week.)

To me, the biggest problem Sunday was the way Keselowski’s car flipped through the air, eerily reminiscent of Edwards’ flip when these same two drivers’ cars made contact at Talladega last year.

Based on the move Edwards made Sunday, there’s no reason Keselowski’s car should have responded that way. For as safe as NASCAR has made the Car of Tomorrow for the driver, the CoT—by going airborne when struck by other cars—continues to endanger the very people who are spending money to see these races live. And it’s a scary proposition with another trip to Talladega on the horizon, particularly with the lax rules about bump drafting. We can only hope the new spoiler corrects some of this.

So how should NASCAR respond here? Parking Edwards was a good start. I’d hope a large fine would also be in order, because a NASCAR charity can benefit from Edwards’ mistake.

But I’m hopeful they won’t make an example of him with a suspension. Considering the precedent NASCAR set with Stewart and others, there’s no justification for that, and Edwards had no reason to think spinning Keselowski—who is no stranger to overaggressive driving and has made his share of enemies in the various NASCAR garages—would end up with the No. 12 Dodge flying through the air.

As a result of what happened Sunday, the drivers now know you can’t pull that type of maneuver with the CoTs on any track, with or without restrictor plates. Warn them that if it happens again, the next person will be suspended. And keep studying this car to find out why it won’t stay on its wheels.

But don’t tell Edwards to “have at it” and then overreact when he takes NASCAR up on that offer.

2. For the sake of the sport, I hope Juan Pablo Montoya wins a championship ... soon. The more I was the Colombian driver, the more difficult it is not to pull for him. His combination of pure driving talent and candor make him a rarity in the Cup garage, and it’s something the Sprint Cup Series could really build on.

Last week, he fairly called out new teammate Jamie McMurray after he took out both of them in a crash at Las Vegas. This week, his team responded with a much-needed third-place finish that ended a two-race stretch of 37th-place finishes.

Over the final 10 laps of regulation, Moytoya appeared to be setting up another great Atlanta finish, reminiscent of Edwards’ first Cup win at the track five years ago when he passed Jimmie Johnson on the final lap. And ironically, it was Edwards’ contact with Keselowski that ended the drama ... and anyone’s chance of catching up to Kurt Busch.

Adding another bit of irony is that it was Montoya who jokingly warned Keselowski’s crew chief late last year that “you better bring

your worst cars” to the track late last year.

“Why’s that?” asked Roy McCauley, Keselowski’s crew chief at the time.

“Because they are going to get wrecked,” Montoya warned with a smile. “Somebody is going to wreck him, if Denny Hamlin doesn’t do it first.”

Sure enough, four months after Hamlin got his revenge on Keselowski in the 2009 Nationwide Series finale, Edwards got retribution after Keselowski ended Edwards’ run in the early laps of Sunday’s race. Said Montoya on Sunday: “I tell you the truth, I was ahead of it, so I have no idea what you’re talking about. I said that last year because [Keselowski] wrecked a lot of people. I’m sure a lot of people wanted to pay him back. Looking at the TV, somebody did.”

Look for more Tuesday morning.

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Should Carl Edwards be suspended for his contact with Brad Keselowski? Not if precedent has anything to say about it.