By Bill Center

Carl Edwards became a public enemy in the media's eyes two weeks ago when Brad Keselowski's car went flying after being spun out by Edwards at Atlanta.

But Edwards can't be blamed for Keselowski's car taking off and landing hard on its roof.

That was NASCAR's fault — a fact that stock car racing's governing body has all but admitted to with its plan to replace the rear wing on the Car of Tomorrow with a new version of the traditional spoiler.

Although he was wrong, Edwards didn't do anything that thousands of drivers before him hadn't — that is, spinning out a rival who had earlier wronged him.

When Keselowski's car became airborne, however,Edwards automatically became "black hat" fodder for all the network anchors who wouldn't have been able to identify race winner Kurt Busch. They mislabeled Edwards as the reason why Keselowski's car took off like a fighter jet.

Wrong.

The reason it flew was the wing above the trailing edge of the trunk. The rear wing replaced the spoiler when the Car of Tomorrow became the Sprint Cup standard two seasons ago.

When the COT is moving forward at 200 mph, the wing provides the downforce NASCAR wanted to see in the COT, which is lighter than the car it replaced.

However, when the car does a 180-degree spin and is headed backward along the track, the wing provides lift, as with an airplane. There is so much lift that at high speeds — at such tracks as Daytona, Talladega and Atlanta — the lift is more than the roof flaps can overcome.

"The roof flaps are overwhelmed," as one NASCAR expert observed.

Atlanta was not the first time that COT cars took flight when they got turned around.

Last season at Talladega, Edwards took flight — after being bumped by Keselowski — and landed on top of Ryan Newman's car. And Ryan flew after getting turned around at Daytona International Speedway two months ago.

In a carefully worded message after the Edwards-Keselowski incident at Atlanta, NASCAR President Mike Helton carefully separated Edwards' actions from what happened after Keselowski's car started to spin — which explains why Edwards was placed on probation for only three races.

It also explains why NASCAR has been testing spoilers on the COT chassis recently at Talladega, Texas, Atlanta and Darlington, and will run a two-day test at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C., next week.

The wing will soon disappear on Sprint Cup cars. The only questions remaining are the width, height and thickness of the new spoiler.

What's going to be most interesting about the switch is how teams will adjust to going from wing to spoiler. Hendrick Motorsports drivers Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon have dominated COT racing with the wing. Will that continue with the new spoiler?

Bill Center writes about sports for The San Diego Union-Tribune.