NASCAR keeps door open for future dustups with Harvick, Busch penalties

Boys can have at it, but keep it on the race track.

That’s what NASCAR implied when it penalized Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch $25,000 and placed each on probation for the next four Sprint Cup Series points-paying events Tuesday following their altercation on pit road after Saturday’s race at Darlington.

NASCAR said the penalties were for what took place on pit road, and not the bumping and wrecking on the race track near the end of the race.

Overall, NASCAR handled this situation appropriately and stayed consistent with how it has dealt with similar situations this season. Even the alleged Juan Pablo Montoya-Ryan Newman incident that occurred inside the NASCAR hauler Friday didn’t receive any penalties.

This situation did a lot to clarify where NASCAR truly stands in the boys, have at it era this season, even if it is still inconsistent with the way it handled similar situations a year ago.

Carl Edwards was placed on probation for the rest of the season after he intentionally wrecked and flipped Brad Keselowski in the spring race at Atlanta. But, both drivers who have intentionally wrecked somebody this season have not been penalized at all.

Does this mean NASCAR has different rules each year, or was the sanctioning body still trying to figure out where it stood on driver altercations early last season? Unfortunately, the only driver to be penalized for wrecking somebody in the past two years was Edwards. Even Harvick was let off the hook at Homestead in the final race of last season when he put Busch into the fence.

In any case, the drivers should feel as though they have more of a precedent on which to go by when a situation comes up in the future. Apparently they can do whatever they want on the track and even fights in the pits might go unpunished, but creating a situation where cars are moving down pit road without a driver is not OK.

Still, fans who enjoy the extra-curricular action that sometimes develops between drivers and teams should be excited about this ruling because it hardly put any restrictions on future incidents.

Another thing to keep in mind is the probations only apply to points races, and the All-Star Race is not a points event. That means anything still goes for that night. After the past two weekends, it will likely end up being one of the most-anticipated events of the season. And who knows, another feud could develop in that race as it did last season when Denny Hamlin blocked Busch coming out of Turn 2 and as Darrell Waltrip said, “He put him in the wall!”

Anyway, there is still a race at Dover before All-Star weekend, and the sport carries as much intrigue with it week-to-week as it has all season. The exciting part is it could continue to just get better.