Will Brad Keselowski Face Consequences for His Antics at Charlotte?

There's no other logical way to explain it: Brad Keselowski channeled his inner Tom Cruise in Saturday night's Bank of America 500.

In the movie Days of Thunder, Cruise was having such a bad day in a race that crew chief Harry Hogge (actor Robert Duvall) told him to intentionally go out and hit the pace car. When Cruise inquired why in an incredulous manner, Duvall deadpanned, "Because you've hit every other g-----n thing out there, I want you to be perfect."

While crew chief Paul Wolfe didn't tell Keselowski to hit the pace car in Saturday's race, he might as well have given how out of control his driver became in the race.

And then, once the checkered flag fell, Keselowski went from out of control to unglued, ramming Denny Hamlin's car on the track, then hitting Matt Kenseth's on pit road—which, in turn, pushed his car into that of Tony Stewart.

Stewart then took matters into his own hands, threw his car into reverse and plowed into the front end of Bad Brad's ride.

All those shenanigans led to the normally mild-mannered Kenseth practically going full-tilt WWE on Keselowski in a battle royale as the two went at it between a pair of haulers in the garage area.

There was high drama and consternation, and it certainly got everyone talking—something that will likely continue throughout the upcoming week heading into the next race at Talladega next Sunday.

But given Keselowski's intentional acts of using other drivers' cars for his own personal pinata, should NASCAR penalize him for the havoc created in his wake? After all, Keselowski's actions may ultimately affect the Chase advancement hopes of Hamlin and particularly Kenseth.

There is precedent. Quite a bit, in fact.

* Jeff Gordon was fined $100,000 and docked 25 points—even though he was all but out of the championship hunt by that point—for intentionally wrecking Clint Bowyer at Phoenix in November 2012. Team owner Rick Hendrick and Bowyer's crew chief, Brian Pattie, were also penalized through fines or points. 

* Even though it wasn't in the Chase, when Kyle Busch wrecked Ron Hornaday Jr. in a Trucks race at Texas in November 2011, Busch wound up being suspended for the Sprint Cup race two days later.

* Another incident, again not in the Chase, but still relevant in this instance, was when Kevin Harvick and Busch played bumper cars on pit road at Darlington in 2011. Both were fined $25,000 and docked driver points.

So, should Keselowski—who is on the brink of elimination already, ranked 10th in the points, 19 points behind the eighth-place cutoff spot that Kasey Kahne currently holds—suffer NASCAR's wrath?

Yes, he should. He intentionally struck several drivers with no regard to what the outcome would be.

At the very least, Keselowski should be fined $75,000—$25,000 for each incident involving Hamlin, Kenseth and Stewart—and be docked 25 driver points, effectively eliminating him from further advancement in the Chase (even if he were to win at Talladega this coming Sunday).

What's more, by striking Kenseth and Stewart's (by default because he was pushed into Stewart) cars, Keselowski also put several track officials and crew members who were on pit road in harm's way and at real risk of being hit and potentially severely injured.

There should be further penalties for putting the lives of others at such risk.

It's just by fate that no one did get hurt—although Kenseth will likely have a stiff neck because the impact from Keselowski's car came after he had removed his protective head-and-neck restraint device.

Can you blame Kenseth for uncharacteristically losing his cool?

"I had my HANS off and my seat belts off and everything," Kenseth told ESPN. "He clobbered me at 50 [mph]. "The race is over, try to come back to pit road. If you want to talk about it as a man, try to do that.

"But to try and wreck someone on the race track, come down pit road with other cars and people standing around with seat belts off and drive in the side of me—it's inexcusable. There is no excuse for that. He is a champion. He supposed to know better than that."

Keselowski responded to Kenseth's accusations by claiming the latter hit his car late in the race, knocking it out of whack.

"We fell back to 16th [where he finished in the race] and ruined our day and gave us a big Chase hurt, which is unfortunate," Keselowski told ESPN. "I figured if we are going to play car wars, I’ll join too.

"You know those guys can dish it out, but they can’t take. And I gave it back to them, and now they want to fight. I don't know what’s up with that."

Interestingly, Keselowski had no problem—probably because Stewart would be a more formidable foe in a fight than the skinny and typically quiet Kenseth—with the way Stewart reacted and retaliated.

"I rubbed in the No. 20 [Kenseth], and I think he gassed up and ran into Tony, and I don’t think Tony knew what was going on," Keselowski said. "He is upset, and he has every right to be. His car was tore up. There was a whole lot of other stuff going on, I’m sure when he sees the whole situation, he will understand."

But will Stewart understand? Will NASCAR understand and accept Keselowski's side of the story?

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Hamlin, for one, thinks NASCAR needs to send Keselowski a message, even though a points penalty at this point would almost certainly assure Keselowski wouldn't advance after Talladega to the Eliminator Round.

"He’s just out of control," Hamlin said of Keselowski. "We got to think about us here going forward, that’s the important thing. NASCAR said no tolerance for stuff like that, and you got to be a bit more mature."

Sure, the Kenseth-Keselowski tussle was great drama and did what NASCAR hoped would happen in the Chase: It got the fans talking and excited.

But if NASCAR doesn't send a clear message to the other drivers by making Keselowski an example of what will and won't be tolerated, by the time the Chase gets to the season finale at Homestead, the series could be on the verge of the kind of mayhem where things will spiral out of control, and someone could get seriously hurt.

Is that what NASCAR really wants to see the Chase turn into?

Unless indicated, all quotes used in this story came from NASCAR distributed media transcripts of post-race interviews on ESPN.

Follow me on Twitter @JerryBonkowski