Rubbed the wrong way

“Rubbin’, son, is racin’.” So said Robert Duvall’s character in “Days of Thunder,” a 1990 Tom Cruise movie about NASCAR.

Twenty years later, those words still hold true.

“Rubbin’,” for those unfamiliar with the term or the sport, basically refers to any contact between cars during a race. Some of it is intentional, some of it isn’t, but all of it would have real-world drivers on the phone with their insurance companies.

NASCAR drivers, though, don’t worry about a ding here, a dent there. Apparently, they don’t even have to worry about rear-ending another driver, sending said driver’s car into a 180-mph cartwheel through the air.

Carl Edwards did that during Sunday’s race in Atlanta. He has some longstanding beef with Brad Keselowski and had his vengeance. Edwards was 156 laps off the lead after he got the worst of some earlier rubbin’ with Keselowski and ended up in the wall.

With no chance to win, Edwards had his car fixed up and returned to the track with the sole purpose of taking out Keselowski.

Mission accomplished, moron.

Keselowski, somehow, was unharmed in the crash. And Edwards, even more astonishingly, was not punished for causing it.

NASCAR instead placed him on probation for three races, whatever the hell that means. So, rather than suspend him, or dock him points in the Sprint Cup standings, Edwards will continue to race.

“We made it very clear to (Edwards) that these actions were not acceptable,” NASCAR president Mike Helton said.

Wow, way to lay down the law. Almost killing a guy, not to mention spectators in the stands, is not acceptable.

Look, I get that NASCAR is popular and people enjoy these driver feuds. And, I’ll be honest, the only reason I watch highlights is to see a crash or hear rednecks talk trash about each other. But this kind of rubbin’ is dangerous, and NASCAR taking no action in response to Edwards’ actions sends the message that it condones vigilante stock car justice.