Edwards reveals ugly side in Kenseth confrontation

Matt Kenseth saw a side of Carl Edwards after Sunday's Martinsville race as scary as any character in a horror movie. AP

So have you seen the video? You know the one I'm talking about-the creepy confrontation between Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth. If you haven't yet, go here.

First of all, folks, we don't yet know the whole story behind this incident. Right now, only Edwards and Kenseth know the history, but it goes back at least to a run-in the two had at Kansas a few weeks ago. Kenseth may have had this coming. That's entirely possible. But all we have to go on is this video and the little we know.

And this much I'm sure of: Jack Roush better get a handle on this thing quick, because it's one of the ugliest sights I've seen in NASCAR this year, and it looks horrible for Edwards. He's one of Cup racing's most genial drivers-thoughtful, open and honest (at least when I've dealt with him)-but never again will he be seen quite the same way. He comes off in the video looking more than a little like a menacing bully.

Think about it. The t-shirt. The cammo shorts. The shades. The thuggish manner. The fake haymaker. And the sneer. That sickening, menacing sneer. It was almost like he was trying to show everybody that he was joking around. Unfortunately, Kenseth's flinch gives his ugly shtick away. (Heck, I flinched a little when I watched the clip for the first time). Edwards is much taller than Kenseth, but until I watched the video, I didn't realize how much he towers over the 2003 Cup champion. Edwards looks like he could squash Kenseth, and I have the feeling that he'd like to.

It was a creepy, unsettling performance from Edwards. Here was a guy who'd just finished 11th, who performed his duties as the in-race reporter with all the good nature in the world and who went through his post-race interviews without any sign that he was even upset. Then he goes out and puts on one of the scariest shows of the Halloween season. It was like he was flipping a switch between the Carl Edwards that we see on television every week, and the Carl Edwards who might not be such a nice guy.

This wasn't anything like Jeff Gordon shoving Kenseth last year, or Kyle Busch throwing his HANS device, or even Kevin Harvick and Juan Pablo Montoya going toe-to-toe at Watkins Glen. Those were all passionate, spur-of-the-moment incidents born of, as Richard Petty likes to say, flustration. The Edwards-Kenseth confrontation was something quite different. And I can totally see why Kenseth looked shaken afterwards. It was downright scary.

Now, on to the rankings:

NASCAR Power Rankings Rank Last Week   Driver 1 1 Jeff Gordon Baaaa-dum ... baa-dum ... ba-dum ... ba-dum dun-dun ba-dum dun-dun ... ans of the movie Jaws know that this is the part of the Chase where we get the sharks-eye view of a pair of legs treading water. In our scenario, Jimmie Johnson is the shark, while Gordon is the unsuspecting swimmer (though it may have occurred to him by now that something isn't quite right). 1(a). 2 Jimmie Johnson Of course, Gordon might also be playing the part of Quint, the shark-hunter haunted by the memory of seeing his friends eaten right in front of his eyes. In this second scenario, Gordon is tormented by the recollection of the time he spent teaching Johnson everything he knows, only to see JJ take that knowledge and surpass his mentor. Unfortunately for Gordon, the shark eats Quint in the end. Atlanta is going to be very interesting. 3 3 Clint Bowyer We keep waiting for him to falter?and waiting?and waiting ... But it hasn't happened, and I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen. He's been nothing but great. Unfortunately for him, because of his season-long strategy of not going for wins, he spotted quite a few points to Johnson (60) and Gordon (40) before the Chase ever began. 4 4 Tony Stewart Another race, another loss of ground to the top two. It's not looking like Stewart's year. He could always go on the sort of run he did this summer, when he spun off three wins in four races, but I don't see it happening this time, not with Gordon and Johnson at the tops of their games. 5 5 Kyle Busch I'm getting very close to bumping him up to four. He's running very well right now, and I'm surprised at the equanimity with which he's handled some of the bad breaks he's gotten. He's going to be a Cup contender again next year, and a Cup winner soon after that. 6 9 Denny Hamlin I don't think he feels like he had a great day at Martinsville-he desperately wants to win at his home-track-but I think he did. His sixth-place run is all the more impressive considering how much trouble he had to avoid all day. 7 6 Carl Edwards What more can I say. He ruined a fine day by acting like a jerk?and by appearing to enjoy acting like a jerk. 8 8 Jeff Burton With his 12th-place finish at Martinsville, he concluded his first solid two-race run of the Chase. Consistency was his strength during the first two months of the season, but it deserted him somewhere along the way and hasn't returned. For a man as fiercely proud as Burton, that's got to hurt./td> 9 7 Kurt Busch He's had just one top 10 in the six Chase races so far. And that, as they say, is all she wrote. 10 10 Kevin Harvick Harvick's role in Jaws would be that of Ben Gardner, the fisherman who gets eaten at the beginning of the movie, but whom we don't see until Richard Dreyfuss finds his head floating in the water. Harvick was eaten by the Chase shark a long time ago, while nobody was watching. There's probably still a big tooth stuck in one of his cars. 11 12 Matt Kenseth I'm bumping him up out of sympathy and a strong finish at Martinsville. 12 11 Martin Truex Jr. Better luck next year, Kid.