The Kansas sun was relentless during Sunday's 400 miles, but Brad Keselowski figured out that spraying mass-produced light beer in victory lane was the ticket to happiness. Here's a bit on everything from NASCAR's Kansas weekend that was:

NEUTRAL: NASCAR announced Monday team owner Richard Childress would be fined $150,000 and placed on NASCAR probation through the end of the 2011 calendar year courtesy of him turning Kyle Busch into his personal punching bag Saturday at Kansas. Was the penalty enough? Was it too far?

I'd like to think it was pretty well appropriate. Lest we forget, $150,000 isn't exactly chump change — even for a team that operates a budget in the tens of millions. Further, Childress is reportedly paying the fine from his own pocket.

But monetary issues aside, I can't help but wonder if NASCAR gaffed in its penalty based on precedent. Jimmy Spencer infamously (or famously, depending on your fandom) punched Kurt Busch square in the jaw after a Michigan race in 2003 and

Sunburned, curiously, only on the right half of my body and still dazed by the bajillions of megapixels hung above the Charlotte backstretch, I'm back from a weekend in fan mode at the Coca-Cola 600. Let's dive in to 600-miles of hits and misses.

HOT: Charlotte Motor Speedway's much-promoted and much-hyped new video board (the 200' by 80' behemoth that they're calling the world's largest high-definition television) very much deserved the promotion and the hype. Frankly, it's the best advance in fan amenity I've seen by a NASCAR track in several years.

Suddenly, the entire track (save for the souls in the turn two grandstand) has a single source for each and every happening during an event at Charlotte Motor Speedway. That's important, I think, because it helps establish a more unified and aware crowd. That's an effect that could prove substantial for selling tickets in the future because even the most casual of fans can feel involved and in-the-loop of a sometimes confusing event.

That

12f795e645fa090c67faad41dfb87f94-getty-107745409rr058_nascar_sprinAn exhibition weekend in Charlotte doesn't mean Hot/Not is taking the week off. Let's jump into the weekend's hits and misses:

Not: We can all agree that NASCAR's All-Star race format could use a tweak, right?

Saturday night was a mildly entertaining race. If I had been in the stands, a beeline to the ticket office demanding a refund wouldn't have crossed my. But this race has been so hyped, so overly promoted that it needs to produce the excitement, punches and otherwise "Oh no he DIDN'T!" reaction from fans.

First, it's silly beyond words that NASCAR's probation of Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick covers an exhibition race. There is no better time for any foes to settle a feud than a night like Saturday's in Charlotte — especially when NASCAR's TV partners run commercial after commercial as if that could happen.

The failure to communicate marketing strategy between the two is maddening and counter-intuitive. It's either one way or the other. Period.

As for the race format, I get why the

b0515kurtBoy, was that worth it.

Alex Tagliani capped off one heck of a Pole Day for next Sunday's Indianapolis 500 in quite the dramatic fashion when he drove his underdog Sam Schmidt Motorsports car to the pole.

Tags, as they call him in the IndyCar world, ripped off four laps at an average of 227.474 mph — just enough to stop Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon from earning his second 500 pole. Oriol Servia completed the other surprising bookend of the front row in his Newman/Haas Racing No. 2 at 227.168 mph.

Tagliani's dramatic laps &mdash possibly the first attempt ever started at Indianapolis after 6 p.m. local time — came in "The Fast Nine" session of Indy's Pole Day. Implemented last year, the program forces each of the fastest nine qualifiers at the end of the regular qualifying session to make one more go to secure the pole award.

This year, the early session was cut short by roughly 45 minutes when a rain shower hampered activity at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and, for a time, looked

ap-201105151553572208693The rain held off, the rubber laid down and the Sprint Cup guys did their best slip-and-slide act Sunday at Dover. Unfortunately, not too many folks showed up to see the show. We dig into that and plenty more in this week's debrief:

NOT: It was tough, really, to see how sparse the grandstands were Sunday afternoon at Dover. The unique mile oval grew substantially during NASCAR's explosive growth in the 1990s and early 2000s, expanding to 135,000 seats in 2001. But Sunday, "just" 82,000 people were said to have showed up. (I say "just" knowing full well 82,000 folks is still a lot of people for most any event.)

NASCAR, of course, seems to always look at the glass half-full when it comes to attendance. But even those glasses colored rose don't hide the fact that Dover has lost roughly 45% of its attendance in the past five years. Dover's not alone in the battle either, as tracks across the nation have struggled to fill their gigantic grandstands built in the late-90s boom.

The reasons

It wasn't Labor Day weekend, but Mother's Day weekend in Darlington is quickly proving to be one of the best on the NASCAR calendar — a distinction, of course, Darlington has held since it opened in 1950. Let's jump in to the mild-mannered weekend that was:

Hot: After his fifth win of the Nationwide Series season Friday night at Darlington, Kyle Busch's winning percentage in that series is a gaudy .555 (5 wins in 9 races). Talk about ridiculous domination.

Not: On that note, has NASCAR's plan to reward points to only non-Cup Series drivers been completely stymied or what? In 10 Nationwide Series races in 2011, the winners have been Busch (5), Tony Stewart, Mark Martin, Carl Edwards (2) and Denny Hamlin.

It's obvious that these guys don't really care about points, as NASCAR had hoped. Maybe it's time these Cup guys were only able to participate if they raced for a non-Cup affiliated Nationwide team.

It won't keep them out of victory lane — Martin won the Turner Motorsports No. 32 at

It was as if Fox wanted blood in the water Saturday night, leading the telecast of the Southern 500 with review of the Richmond run in between Ryan Newman and Juan Pablo Montoya. Did Newman really punch Montoya Friday? Was there more payback coming?

By Lap 85, Montoya delivered — but Newman was nowhere to be found.

Instead, it was Montoya nudging Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 into a Turn 1 spin-and-save and his crew chief Chad Knaus into the role of accuser.

"Can somebody tell me what I did wrong there?" Johnson asked via his in-car radio after gathering the car from the spin.

"He's a douchebag, just pissed off at the world," Knaus fired back.

Five-time didn't lose a lap in the exchange, but would later lose one after he spun exiting Turn 4 on Lap 222. Johnson rallied back to the lead lap and finished 15th.

For Montoya's part, he apologized for the contact over the radio.

"Tell him I apologize, but I let him go and then he just stopped in the middle of the corner," Montoya said.

Knaus