Edwards, Keselowski feud showing no signs of letting up

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07/19/2010 - Madison, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - "Boom boom boom, now. Boom boom boom, now. Boom boom pow."

I generally don't like using song lyrics to describe a frantic episode in a NASCAR race or any other motorsports event, but after last Saturday's night's final-lap clash between on-going rivals Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski in the 250-mile Nationwide Series race at Gateway International Raceway, I couldn't help but think of the Black Eyed Peas' 2009 hit single, "Boom Boom Pow."

While they were beating each other up during the last lap around the 1.25- mile oval, you just had to wonder if the latest battle between Edwards and Keselowski would end up in a "checkers or wreckers."

Indeed, it did. Like it has in the past.

Keselowski bumped Edwards for the lead in turn one, but Edwards got payback coming out of turn four, where he nudged Keselowski from behind and sent him hard into the wall along the frontstretch, triggering a multi-car crash.

"He was holding me tight and getting me a little loose, which was cool," Keselowski said. "I was rubbing on him a little bit...I figured out a way to beat him. He wasn't happy with me, so he wrecked me. Wrecking down the straightaway is never cool, whether it's at 200 m.p.h. or 120. I'm sorry that's the way it had to end."

As Edwards took the checkered flag for a record third time in a Nationwide race at Gateway, which is located roughly 125 miles east of his hometown of Columbia, MO, Keselowski's battered car slid across the finish line in 14th- place before Shelby Howard plowed into him, causing him to spin around again. Keselowski climbed out of his car a bit woozy, but was not injured.

"Brad and I have a history, but that history had nothing to do with what happened [Saturday]," Edwards said. "I feel like we respect one another a lot. On that last lap, I would have won the race if he hadn't bumped me in turn one. He would have finished second. The way it went, he bumped me, and he finished wherever he finished, and I still won the race.

"That was the only way I could see the race turning out fair, and that was my job to win that race and to make sure I don't get walked on or get something taken away from me that's mine."

Was Edwards' win legitimate? That likely will be a subject of debate for quite some time.

Edwards claimed his incident with Keselowski was not intentional, but let's face it, with the history between these two drivers, it looked like a deliberate move on Edwards' part.

"I didn't mean any harm to him at all," Edwards said. "The deal is eventually he'll learn you can't run into my car over and over and put me in bad situations. In every situation, there is an aggressor, and there is someone who reacts. I was not the aggressor in this situation."

The drivers have had previous on-track altercations, most notably in March when Edwards intentionally bumped Keselowski from behind and sent him flying upside down into the frontstretch wall during the closing laps of the Sprint Cup Series race at Atlanta. Edwards was more than 150 laps behind at the time of the crash, due to a previous encounter with Keselowski in that race.

NASCAR immediately parked Edwards for aggressive driving, and days later, placed him on probation for three races.

The feud between the two began in April 2009 when Keselowski hit Edwards from behind on the final lap at Talladega. While Keselowski drove on to his first Sprint Cup victory, Edwards' car spun and then sailed into the safety fence along the frontstretch.

The rivalry between Edwards and Keselowski hit a new boiling point at Gateway, but how far will it go before someone gets seriously hurt, or worse, fatally injured?

Prior to the start of the season, NASCAR told its drivers, "boys, have at it," but Edwards and Keselowski have been at it too long, and it's beginning to upset some people in the sport, particularly Keselowski's father, Bob, who is a former NASCAR driver and current team owner.

"[Edwards] ain't going to kill my boy," Bob Keselowski said during a post-race interview on ESPN. " He just overreacted so bad. If he wanted to bump Brad, that's one thing, but don't drive him through the inside guard rail. Don't put him through the grandstands at Atlanta. That's asinine."

During an interview on SPEED's Wind Tunnel television show on Sunday, Sprint Cup points leader and part-time Nationwide competitor Kevin Harvick told host Dave Despain that he would have responded differently than Keselowski if he had he been the one who was involved in the incident with Edwards.

"I probably wouldn't have reacted as kindly as Brad did; I probably would have walked down there and punched him in the mouth," Harvick said.

Harvick, who won the Camping World Truck Series race at Gateway earlier in the day, finished 16th in the Nationwide event. Harvick blew a right-front tire and made contact with the wall in the late-stages.

With Keselowski currently holding a 168-point lead over Edwards in the Nationwide standings, don't be surprised if we see some more "Boom Boom Pow" between these two during the remainder of the season to come.

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NCAA Football Betting : USC's reward: Top spot in Top 25

NEW YORK (AP) -By staying away from the cupcakes, Southern California earned itself a slim new ranking.

No. 1 always seems to fit USC.

Southern California jumped two spots to No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 on Tuesday, rewarded by voters for opening the season with a dominant performance on the road against a BCS conference opponent.

Georgia and Ohio State, the preseason Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, started their seasons with glorified scrimmages at home against FCS (formerly I-AA) teams. USC, however, traveled across country to face Virginia and could not have been more impressive in a 52-7 victory.

Georgia fell to No. 2 and Ohio State to No 3.

"We realize that rankings so early in a season are certainly fluid. But rankings do help establish a pecking order for things later in the season," USC coach Pete Carroll said in a statement. "As for moving into the No. 1 spot, it's nice to know that people think highly of our team."

Since reaching No. 1 on Dec. 7, 2003, the final-regular season AP poll of that season, USC has been No. 1 in 39 polls, by far the most of any team during that time.

"Some have said the voters are taking our schedule into consideration," Carroll said. "Our philosophy has always been to schedule outstanding opponents. We need to play challenging games like we just did, traveling across the country to open the season at Virginia. Games like that bring out our best and make us stronger as a team."

The latest voting was close. USC received 21 first-place votes and 1,539 points from the 65-member media panel. Georgia had 20 first-place votes and 1,506 points. Ohio State got 15 first-place votes and 1,497 points.

"I'd say we've evolved as pollsters," said Stewart Mandel of SI.com, who moved USC up to No. 1. "In the past, voters just kind of automatically moved teams up and kept teams where they were if they won."

Georgia beat Georgia Southern 45-21 on Saturday and Ohio State opened with a 43-0 win over Youngstown State.

"There's a bit of a growing backlash for the amount of teams that open with I-AA cupcakes," said Mandel, whose book "Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls" chronicles college football's controversies. "To see a team [USC] go on the road and play a New Year's Day bowl team from last season, and not only play them but destroy them, how could you not reward that team?"

USC also jumped past Georgia to No. 1 in the USA Today coaches' poll, which has the same top five as the AP poll.

"It's definitely a privilege to be No. 1. But it's not heartbreaking to me if we drop," Georgia offensive lineman Josh Davis said. "It doesn't matter right now what we're ranked. What matters is our next game and right now, that's Central Michigan. The only time the polls matter is in December. That's when the polls matter."

While the Bulldogs opened easy, their schedule ultimately should be as difficult as any team's. Georgia's big nonconference test is at No. 15 Arizona State on Sept. 20. The Bulldogs also face six Southeastern Conference rivals that've been ranked in the first two polls.

As for Ohio State, the Buckeyes play at USC on Sept. 13 before getting into the Big Ten schedule.

But of the teams in this week's top 10, USC and Texas are the only ones that don't play an FCS opponent, and the Trojans are the only team that doesn't play a team from a non-BCS conference.

Get the latest 2009 BCS Championship odds at MySportsbook.com.

The last team to drop from No. 1 after a victory was USC last season. LSU jumped from No. 2 to No. 1 when it beat Tulane 34-9, the same week the Trojans edged Washington 27-24 on the road.

The last preseason No. 1 team to lose the top spot after winning its opening game was Florida in 2001. The Gators beat Marshall 49-14, but preseason No. 2 Miami opened with a 33-7 victory over Penn State and the Hurricanes jumped to No. 1 with Florida slipping to second.

The next four teams in the new Top 25 stayed the same: No. 4 Oklahoma (two first-place votes), No. 5 Florida (five first-place votes), No. 6 Missouri (one first-place vote), No. 7 LSU (one first-place vote) and No. 8 West Virginia.

No. 9 Auburn and No. 10 Texas each moved up a spot, taking advantage of Clemson's big drop. Clemson, ninth in the preseason, fell out after losing 34-10 to Alabama on Saturday.

Also falling out after losses were Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and Tennessee.

Moving into the rankings were No. 21 Fresno State, No. 22 Utah, No. 23 UCLA and No. 24 South Carolina.

Alabama moved up 11 spots after its big victory over Clemson.

The second 10 started with No. 11 Wisconsin, followed by Texas Tech, Alabama and Kansas. BYU and Arizona State were tied for 15th. Rivals BYU and Utah are both ranked for the first time since 1996.

South Florida was No. 17, ahead of Oregon, Penn State and Wake Forest at No. 20.

The final five were all the teams to move into the ranking, except for Illinois, which dropped four spots and tied South Carolina for No. 24.

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