After the race, Nationwide Series director Joe Balash said the incident was nothing but the result of hard racing, hinting to Edwards escaping without penalty.
That changed however yesterday, as the sanctioning body announced Edwards has been docked 60 points, fined $25,000 and placed on probation for the rest of the season in all NASCAR series. Team owner Jack Roush was also sent back 60 points.
Keselowski, who apparently started the incident by pushing Edwards aside earlier in the race, was also punished. In his case, however, probation until the end of the year was deemed to be enough.
"Both of them are on probation through the end of the year," NASCAR vice president Robin Pemberton was quoted as saying by Autosport. "We needed to do that to help protect the garage area from being caught up in an incident not of their making.”
“These two drivers have a history with each other. We had talked to both drivers after the Atlanta incident. And even though Carl was put on probation, we had conversations with Brad about their relationship and explained to them that there will be a boundary.“
The Gateway incident between the two is minor compared to the one which took place at the Talladega Superspeedway back in April 2009. Then, a similar skirmish resulted in eight fans being injured after Edward's car became airborne and sent debris into the spectator area.
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