Will NASCAR's Weak Penalty for Brad Keselowski Bring More Trouble at Talladega?

The $50,000 fine and four-race probation penalty levied on Brad Keselowski by NASCAR Tuesday was toothless.

In fact, it was so toothless that Keselowski's fellow Sprint Cup competitors might want to consider pooling their money and drawing straws to see if they can get away with the same post-race shenanigans for the same bargain rate at Talladega this Sunday.

After all, you just know there are several Cup drivers who would love to see if Keselowski really can take what he dished out in a series of bizarre post-race incidents that resembled rambling NASCAR road rage following the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Can't you see it now?

Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin, the Joe Gibbs Racing teammates who escaped Saturday's fracas unscathed as far as penalties, surely would be willing to throw in $10,000 each to get the fund started. Then all they'd have to do is pass the hat to Tony Stewart.

Stewart seemed to be an innocent bystander Saturday when Keselowski plowed into him from behind on pit road after the race. But Stewart somehow received a $25,000 fine and a four-race probation of his own because he retaliated like any red-blooded race car driver would.

Stewart jammed his car into reverse and hit the gas, crunching into the hood of Keselowski's No. 2 Team Penske Ford.

How Keselowski escaped Saturday's series of events without receiving any points deductions is a mystery. While it's true that it likely won't matter—Keselowski already is in such trouble in the Chase Contender Round that he almost certainly will have to win at Talladega to advance to the next round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup—NASCAR at least should have docked him 10 points to put him last in the current standings and make it an absolute certainty that he will need to win.

Not that Keselowski's chances of winning at Talladega are very good now, anyway.

His record at the 2.66-mile superspeedway is fine—two wins, three top-five and six top-10 finishes in 11 career starts. But in May, he cut down on Danica Patrick 13 laps into the race and sent her spinning in a needlessly overly aggressive move, and then he triggered a 15-car wreck later while racing up front with the leaders.

The real problem? Keselowski was six laps down at the time he caused that wreck, which angered several drivers, per FoxSports.com. His earlier move on Patrick was so senseless that Kenseth at the time described it as "mind-boggling."

So now, as NASCAR prepares for arguably the biggest, most unpredictable race of this season, another subplot is born. Will Keselowski's foes be willing to take him out if their own Chase chances are finished? Luckily for Keselowski, the two greatest candidates for retaliation—Kenseth and Hamlin—have too much at stake this Sunday to play that game.

But Stewart? Or Patrick? Or any number of others who were taken out by Keselowski back in May?

Now that they know it might only cost them a total of $50,000 and the slap on the wrist that is a four-race probation, there's almost no telling what they might do.

The only thing that seems absolutely certain is that NASCAR won't have much problem with whatever happens.

One driver who certainly was not surprised that no points penalties were issued Tuesday was Kevin Harvick, winner of Saturday's race at Charlotte. Harvick was doing celebratory burnouts on the track as Keselowski started playing what the driver of the No. 2 described as "car wars" by plowing into the machines driven by Hamlin, Kenseth and the unsuspecting Stewart, per FoxSports.com. In the Sprint Cup garage afterward, first Hamlin and then a more successful Kenseth attempted to physically confront Keselowski, who also was accused of recklessly driving his car into the garage area.

According to FoxSports.com, when asked in his post-race media news conference if he thought points penalties would be forthcoming for any of the participating combatants, Harvick chuckled and replied of NASCAR's governing body, "You're crazy. They love it. They were fighting afterward. That's what it's all about."

While it certainly was entertaining, it's really supposed to be about racing for a championship, isn't it? Keselowski and NASCAR may have just combined misguided intentions to reduce that to a sideshow at Talladega.

Unless otherwise noted, all information was obtained firsthand by the writer.

Joe Menzer has written six books, including two about NASCAR, and now writes about it and other sports for Bleacher Report as well as covering NASCAR as a writer and editor for FoxSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @OneMenz.