(Getty)Welcome to Warped Wednesday. On this, we'll put out the rush to judgment mat, go a little too far and have a little fun. Will it be funny? Sometimes. Will it be crazy and largely unbelievable? Probably. Will not everyone get it? Definitely.

Ryan Newman has been fined $25,000 for his comments criticizing NASCAR’s decision to race late into the afternoon and evening at Talladega on Sunday.

Newman’s comments were out of frustration after he was involved in a crash that saw Kurt Busch’s car land on top of his.

"They can build safer race cars, they can build safer walls, but they can't get their heads out of their asses far enough to keep them on the race track, and that's pretty disappointing," he said after exiting the infield care center. "I wanted to make sure I get that point across, and y'all can figure out who 'they' is.”

NASCAR certainly figured out who the “they” was in Newman’s comments, and he was fined the same amount that Denny Hamlin was after he made his comments about

There was a lot that happened at Talladega to talk about, no? Hell, we had so much to talk about that we hit the hour mark without getting to talk about the Nationwide race. Sorry Ronald Reagan Smith.

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Brad Keselowski will be without crew chief Paul Wolfe two races instead of six. (Getty)

John Middlebrook, NASCAR's chief appellate officer, upheld Penske Racing's points penalties and fines but reduced the suspensions that were levied against the team after NASCAR found violations in the rear-end housing of the Penske cars before the April 13 race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Crew chiefs Todd Gordon and Paul Wolfe, along with Penske Competition Director Travis Geisler, were suspended six races along with car chiefs Jerry Kelley (Brad Keselowski) and Raymond Fox (Joey Logano) and team engineers Brian Wilson (Keselowski) and Samuel Stanley (Logano). On Tuesday, Middlebrook reduced all crew suspensions to two races.

Logano and Keselowski were penalized 25 points and Gordon and Wolfe were fined $100,000 by NASCAR. The points penalties and fines stand. All previous penalties had been upheld by NASCAR's appeals panel previously. The crew members will be eligible to return to the track at Dover.

Last year, Middlebrook heard the final appeal of Hendrick Motorsports and Jimmie Johnson's

It's time for Power Rankings! After every race, we'll opine about who we think is at the top of the Sprint Cup heap and how and why they got there. Remember, this isn't scientific, as our formula is the perfect blend of analytics and bias against your favorite driver. So let's get on with it, shall we?

1. Jimmie Johnson (LW: 1): Ho hum, another top five finish for JJ. Did anyone else have a sneaking suspicion that Johnson was going to get past Matt Kenseth before that final caution flag flew? Instead, Johnson was fifth, and saw his points lead trimmed by an astonishing two points. What a slacker.

2. Carl Edwards (LW: 2): Speaking of the guy who sliced into Johnson's points lead! Tony Stewart's move during last fall's Talladega race had us thinking: what if Edwards had made another move when Ragan dashed to his inside on the backstretch? Who would have won the race? Anyone?

3. Matt Kenseth (LW: 3): Yeah, yeah, yeah, not much change at the top. What's in the water for Kenseth that's made

David Ragan takes the checkers, at long last. (Getty Images)

TALLADEGA, Ala. - At Talladega, controversy comes at you like a pinwheeling car in The Big One: you don't know when it will happen, and you don't know what direction it will come from, but you know it's coming. Every single year.

The Aaron's 499 on Sunday took seven hours and five minutes, about half of which was spent in a red-flag rain delay. And, as always happens at Talladega, race-altering possibilities that were visible at the green flag — rainfall, catastrophic wrecks, the threat of darkness — all came into play, seasoned with a light dusting of a restart controversy.

First things first, however: this race had the most improbable 1-2 finishers in years, if not decades. Winner David Ragan and second-place finisher David Gilliland, both from indie team Front Row Motorsports, combined to outrun the absolutely dominant trio of Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards. If this wasn't quite a 16 beating a 1 in the NCAA tournament, a journeyman winning the Masters, or a mule taking

TALLADEGA, Ala. - Pack racing is a thrilling spectacle because the threat of a catastrophic wreck is present on every inch of the track. And it doesn't take much to turn pack racing into pack wrecking.

With only a half-dozen laps remaining, the front of the field was tighter than a white-knuckle fist. At that speed, with such little distance between cars, the tiniest mistakes magnify. And that's exactly what happened. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. appeared to bounce off the wall, sending J.J. Yeley right into Kurt Busch. Busch vaulted into the air and began flipping, and only stopped when he landed atop the hood of Ryan Newman.

That set off a cascade of wrecks; Terry Labonte and Danica Patrick sustained enough damage to go to the garage. And, naturally, it also set off the drivers involved.

“My mom doesn’t come to four races a year — Daytona and Talladega. Wonder why," said Kurt Busch, in a postrace interview that lasted all of about eight seconds. When told he still had a good race, he replied,

TALLADEGA, Ala. - Some of the world's greatest drivers are circling at Talladega. And to the high banks of the superspeedway, that doesn't matter one bit. The track can force even the best among them into mistakes like they were rookies.

In turn 1 of lap 44 of the Aaron's 499, Kyle Busch made an ill-advised move to try to get around Kasey Kahne. The resulting spiral of carnage took out 13 cars, including nine of the top 14. Involved in the accident were Kevin Harvick, Brian Vickers, Greg Biffle, Tony Stewart, and many others.

"I don't really know what happened," Busch said afterward. "I know I got in the back of the 5 and I guess I was trying to go to the outside of him, but he just moved up in front of me and I wasn't expecting it. I tried to got o the outside of him and before I could get to the outside of him, I got in the back of him."

"Felt the No. 18 pushing me and next thing I know I was spinning," Kahne said. "You just can’t push with these cars. We learned that at Daytona, he

The Air Titan track-drying system would be a good NASCAR fantasy pick this weekend. (Getty Images)

Rain has washed out qualifying for the Aaron's 499 at Talladega, meaning that the field will be set based on the first practice speeds from Friday. That puts Carl Edwards at the front of the field. However, Mother Nature being fickle, even though Edwards starts at the front he won't benefit from the pole position for the purposes of qualifying for the 2014 Sprint Unlimited.

"We were all driving like idiots out there in first practice knowing it was probably going to rain today," Marcos Ambrose said shortly after qualifying was rained out. Ambrose will start third, and he's pleased: "It's good to start at the front. It eliminates a lot of accidents."

Edwards paced the field with a time of 47.958 seconds for 199.675 miles per hour. Lining up alongside him on the front row is Martin Truex Jr., who was just 0.025 mph slower than Edwards. Filling out the rest of the top 10: Ambrose, Joey Logano, Ryan Newman, Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne. (Full