Steve Helber / AP

Carl Edwards was unapologetic after winning the Sharpie 500 on Saturday.

By Reid Spencer

updated 8:55 p.m. ET Aug. 25, 2008

To those who pine for the old Bristol — forget it.

The old Bristol is gone. Twenty cases of dynamite couldn't have eradicated it more thoroughly than the combination of the new configuration at the .533-mile track and NASCAR's new racecar.

But the ghosts of Bristol are still around — and we saw one Saturday night.

For a fleeting moment, old and new converged, when Carl Edwards bumped Kyle Busch in Turn 1 with 31 laps remaining in the Sharpie 500. The contact moved Busch up the track and allowed Edwards to pass to the inside.

Edwards pulled away for the win, and Busch wasn't happy. He expressed his displeasure by running into Edwards on the cool-down lap. Edwards retaliated by spinning Busch.

Their postrace comments were echoes of the past.

"Carl's going to say he's sorry and that he didn't mean to race that way, the way he always does — Mr. Ed-like," Busch said.

That sounded more than vaguely similar to Terry Labonte's quip after Dale Earnhardt Sr. spun him in Turn 2 on the final lap Aug. 28, 1999, at Bristol.

"Have you ever heard him say he means to spin anybody out?" Labonte asked, while Earnhardt was celebrating in victory lane.

The comment that evoked that response was pure Earnhardt, brash and tongue-in-cheek.

"I didn't mean to really turn him around," Earnhardt said, smiling his typical sly smile. "I meant to rattle his cage, though."

Just as tongue-in-cheek was Edwards' description of his altercation with Busch after Saturday night's race.

"I guess he got into me a little bit," Edwards said. "The steering wheel must have come out of my hand, and I ended up hitting him."

The tempers were there, and so were the saucy attitudes, but aside from Edwards' decisive bump-and-run and a seven-car pileup in Turn 1 on Lap 216, Saturday's race at Bristol was a far removed from the old days as "Herbie Rides Again" is from "Terminator 2."

In case you weren't paying attention to the prerace comments, Jeff Gordon told us that racing at Bristol has changed, radically and irrevocably.

"I think we need to get used to great racing here being side-by-side racing, rather than wreck-each-other racing," Gordon said. "We've got more racing room here. There's still going to be bumping and banging, but it's not going to be like it was before, because it's not a one-groove racetrack anymore."

True. If you came to Bristol to see passes for the lead, Saturday's race was a major disappointment. There were four lead changes among three drivers, with Busch and Edwards combining to lead 499 of 500 laps. The lone exception was Gordon edging ahead at the stripe to put the nose of his Chevrolet in front on Lap 48.

In one stretch, before Edwards unapologetically took the point for good on Lap 470, Busch led 415 straight circuits. The dominance of two cars, however, may have as much to do with Busch and Edwards consistently being the two fastest cars in the Sprint Cup Series this year as with anything else.

Remember, the drivers have combined to win 14 of 24 races this year — with Busch holding an 8-6 lead.

If you looked at the event in its totality, you saw intense racing on every lap. Juan Pablo Montoya, for instance, was a veritable rolling blockade, contesting every pass to the limit.

And if you listen to Edwards, it's clear he prefers the new Bristol, with its new concrete surface and graduated banking.

"I think the fans see more true racing on this surface, rather than give-and-take and nudging people out of the way for every position," he said. "So I think this is better. I think you're going to see exciting races here for a long time to come.

"It's hard to pass — extremely hard to pass — but the track is small enough that there's always something going on."

There's one thing about Bristol that hasn't changed, though. The track still has the ability to amplify a rivalry exponentially. Even Busch's team president, J.D. Gibbs, got into the act after the race, walking up to Edwards and telling him, "You reap what you sow."

Edwards says he knows that — and that he remembers Richmond.

"The history I remember is him (Busch) running into me real hard at Richmond," said Edwards, who considers the score even at this point.

Busch almost certainly does not, and the last race in NASCAR's "regular season" is less than two weeks away — at Richmond.