WEAVER: Back to fun, old-school racing

When considering the polarizing events that transpired earlier in the week, Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Richmond was the best possible outcome for NASCAR fans.

Instead of arguing over lugnuts, penalties and politics, the water cooler conversation shifted on Sunday toward the on-track product -- specifically Carl Edwards and his perfectly-executed final lap bump-and-run on Kyle Busch.

The move was a little old-school, a little controversial and a lot of fun to experience in person.

The exchange ended one of the better events at Richmond and featured the first-ever final-lap pass in the 70-year history of the track. Scheduled as a daytime affair for the first time since 1997, the weather and a new Goodyear tire compound came together and produced a ton of action.

Unlike recent events at the 3/4-mile oval, drivers were able to run both the top and the bottom grooves. That produced 23 lead changes and 2,083 overall green-flag passes, the most since 2007 and 2013, respectively.

But again, the last lap is all everyone wants to talk about.

Edwards began to reel in Busch with 10 laps to go, and he kept pressuring the defending champion until he made a critical mistake on the final circuit.

After losing a considerable amount of time in Turns 1 and 2, Busch backed up the corner in 3 and 4. At the same time, Edwards drove in as deep as possible, eventually running into the back of his teammate and shoving him up the track.

Edwards surged ahead and crossed the finish line as the winner.

"Kyle's an amazing teammate, but it's like he got really slow there at the end," Edwards said in Victory Lane. "Something happened on that last lap. It was like his rear tires went off or something. He went down into Turn 1 and I dove in and got to him. I thought, 'Man, I've got something here.'

"And he went to get down to the bottom and parked it in 3 and 4, and I had already decided to go down there, so I thought, 'Man, I'm going to give him a little nudge.' And we've both got wins, and we're racing for fun getting these trophies and (it was) just an awesome day."

Therein lies the most important takeaway.

Both Joe Gibbs Racing teammates had already won this season and thus already punched their tickets to the Chase for the Championship. There was nothing on the line beyond pride and a trip to Victory Lane, so why wouldn't Edwards take a chance?

"The first opportunity I even had to get that close to him was the last lap and really the last corner," Edwards said. "You're sitting here as a racecar driver, thinking, 'What do we do here?' We're here to win the race. You can either finish first or you can finish second.

"It's a tough decision, but at this point in the season, we've both already won. So really it was about just going for trophies and having fun. We still finished first and second and nobody got wrecked."

It was the same brand of close quarters, hard-nosed racing that first gave NASCAR a national spotlight. It's also the best argument for a win-and-you're-in playoff format, even if not everyone agrees with it. Both Busch and Edwards had very little to lose, and the finish reflected that.

Good for him, but more importantly, good for us.

"If we look at the big picture, today was a great day for NASCAR," winning crew chief Dave Rogers said. "Our fans don't want to see team orders. They don't deserve teammates falling in line. They deserve good, hard racing.

"So I think today was a great day for the sport. It stinks that we had to move a teammate ... but I think it would be very disappointing to our fans if Joe imposed a team order."

After a week full of lugnut talk and the driver council's growing influence, it was just nice on a Sunday in Eastern Virginia to get back to basics and simply talk about good racing.