Newman, Busch incident after Darlington race
Busch was also placed on probation through July 25 for his actions Saturday night, which began when a flat tire caused him to wreck with six laps remaining in the race.
He headed to pit road for repairs, and, as he left, he did a burnout through Newman's pit box. There were crew members over the wall and on pit road at the time, and they complained they could have been injured by Busch's actions.
Busch also ran into Newman's car on pit road after the race, and several of Newman's crew members confronted Busch.
NASCAR also placed Newman crew chief Tony Gibson — a Daytona Beach native — on probation through June 27 for failing to control his team, and crew member Andrew Rueger was fined $5,000 and placed on probation for failing to comply with a directive from a NASCAR official.
Busch's motorhome driver, Craig Strickler, was fined $5,000 and placed on probation through the end of the year for interfering with a member of Fox's broadcast team.
It's just the latest dust-up for Busch, who was fined $50,000 by NASCAR last November for making an obscene gesture and being verbally abusive to a TV reporter during the season finale. Busch parted ways with Penske Racing soon after, and said he's seeing a sports psychologist to help him better deal with adversity.
But Newman insisted Saturday night not much has changed with Busch and attributed his actions to a "chemical imbalance."
"It's easy to see and it's easy to say that Kurt blew a fuse again," Newman told SI.com after the race. "I'm not sure why he did it and tried to run over our guys and NASCAR officials. And nobody is (sure why)."
05/14/12 NASCAR is reviewing the past-race fracas between Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch to see if penalties are warranted, said vice president of competition Ryan Pemberton. A Sprint Cup official fell back on Busch's car, but Pemberton didn't think it was an aggressive move toward the official. "We're looking at film, we're still getting all the facts straight," Pemberton said after the race. "We haven't talked to Kurt; we talked to Ryan a little bit. He talked to Kurt afterwards and he told him he didn't mean to hit him, he was taking his helmet off and looked up and he'd run into the back of him. So right now that's really all the facts that we have." Busch did not talk to reporters following the Southern 500. Associated Press/ESPN