[media-credit name=”Brad Keppel” align=”alignright” width=”225″][/media-credit]Tempers flared hotter than the Kansas sun after the Camping World Truck Race on Saturday. With rumors and stories about a wild altercation between legendary car owner Richard Childress and driver Kyle Busch. The stories appeared to grow in intensity from the time the story broke until this morning when everyone returned to the track.

There wasn’t a black eye as far as I could see for Busch, but he was wearing his normal vision sun glasses.  Although when he went into the NASCAR truck he was not wearing them. He was in pretty good humor for someone who was punched by a 65 year old man who is significantly larger than he is. No one will say absolutely for certain that some of the extreme stories that have been reported are true. Everyone does agree on one thing however, that is that.at least one punch a piece was thrown. I attempted to ask Kyle Busch about the incident and he said,”You can ask me a question as long as you are not asking about yesterday.”

Coach Gibbs was the first to go into the NASCAR truck. He was followed shortly by Kyle and then approx 15 minutes later by Richard Childress.The entire meeting took approx 15 minutes with all parties declining comment on their exit from the truck. Coach Gibbs did say he would have a statement later on today.

If I may be blunt and honest, There have been a lot of liberties taken here with this story. Richard Childress of late has lost a lot of man hours to fixing equipment that Kyle Busch has been involved in tearing up. Man hours equal money. I doubt that Richard Childress is hurting for money but to spend it unnecessarily is frustrating to have to spend it.

Also if you stop and look at it RCR cars or trucks have been involved in more incidents with Busch than any other team. Combine that with the heat and humidity here. Combine it then again with the frustration of wrecks and mechanical issues and you have the recipe for disaster and aggression. Now I am not making excuses for Childress if he threw the first punch, then he is responsible and should at least get what the drivers would have gotten for the same behavior. He obviously did by accounts throw the first punch. My real issue with that is it was apparently pre-meditated as he removed jewelery and handed it to Austin Dillion. It appears, and appearances are sometimes deceiving, that he intended to spark the physical altercation.

NASCAR issued the following statement at approximately 930AM.

“NASCAR has reviewed the incident involving Richard Childress and Kyle Busch after the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race Saturday at Kansas Speedway. We have met with all parties involved and have determined what happened yesterday is unacceptable and will not be tolerated by NASCAR

Richard Childress’s actions were not appropriate and fell short of the standard we expect of owners in this sport. We have met with Childress this morning and made our position very clear to him. Further, we expect he will make it clear to all in his organization to ensure this situation does not escalate any further. We will announce our actions regarding this incident Monday.

Kyle Busch remains on probation with NASCAR and we continue to watch his actions carefully. However, we have determined that Kyle’s involvement in this incident does not violate his probation and no further action is required.”

Mike Helton made it clear that there were restrictions on Richard Childress as far as where he can and can’t be for this race. He didn’t give out any specifics except to say that the teams required leadership for this weekend and he would be allowed to stay at the track with restrictions.

Helton also stated that they would make further decisions on penalties and actions this week perhaps sooner than they normally would.

NASCAR president Mike Helton said Sunday morning that penalties will be announced for Richard Childress on Monday after his post Truck Series race fight with Kyle Busch.  NASCAR deemed that Busch’s involvement did not violate his NASCAR probation, therefore he will not receive any further sanctions from NASCAR.

“Obviously after last night’s incident, we began looking into it through the evening, and as recent as 15 minutes ago, meeting with different parties,” NASCAR President Mike Helton said. “We concluded that the driver of the 18 truck, Kyle Busch, did nothing to provoke or to cause the reactions that, in our opinion, would have violated probation. Did nothing that would have warranted the actions of Richard Childress.

“And so we’ll have to — once we get today’s race concluded, which is the focus of today, we’ll have to decide what NASCAR’s reaction is to Richard Childress as a member of NASCAR in an action against another NASCAR member.

“The biggest topic today, certainly, through the conversations outside of the incident itself was to be sure that today’s event went on correctly and safely for everybody involved, and both the Richard Childress Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing organizations, we have made it clear to them that our expectations is that both Joe Gibbs and Richard Childress meet with their teams to be sure that nobody from their organizations felt like there was anything that needed to be done from their side.

“So we’ll focus on today’s race now, and then quickly, maybe more quickly than normal, come back with our reaction as it relates to NASCAR member Richard Childress. ”

According to sources who spoke to SB Nation’s Jeff Gluck, Childress handed his watch to grandson Austin Dillon before punching Busch multiple times and putting him into a headlock.  Busch reportedly bent down to avoid further injuries, but Childress tried to land another shot once Busch returned to his feet, sources told Gluck.

Busch raced hard with Joey Coulter in the closing laps of the race, with the two drivers making contact coming towards the finish before Coulter eventually got the best of the two-truck race for fifth. After the checkers flew, Busch tapped Coulter’s driver side door panel.

“With as hot as it is and the tires, you know, had a bunch of laps on them, once the tires start sliding it’s really hard to get them to stop,” Coulter told media after the race. “And we [him and Busch] just run up towards the fence. I really hate that it happened because it was going to be a pretty exciting run to the line.  But, I guess that’s part of the mile and a half stuff.”

Busch is on NASCAR probation in all NASCAR series and events until June 15.