Childress expected action on Busch

Childress will pay US $150,000 for reportedly attacking Busch following the conclusion of a Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway last weekend. The incident came after Busch tapped the right-side of Richard Childress Racing's Joey Coulter on the cool-down lap after the pair had been fighting for fifth place.

The 65-year-old team owner felt NASCAR should have reacted to that, but the sanctioning body's president Mike Helton stated last week that in its opinion Busch did not do anything to provoke Childress' behaviour.

"I appreciate everyone's patience during the last week when I couldn't talk to everyone," Childress told reporters at Pocono Raceway on Friday.

"The main thing is I take all the responsibility for my actions last week. I am very passionate about this sport. I am passionate about my race teams, our fans and I let my emotions get...come in front of my passion. But that is behind us.

"I guess the next thing is the fine that was levied against me, I'm going to pay it personally. I agree that NASCAR should have done something with me. I don't agree that they didn't handle the situation that happened on the cool-down lap.

"With that said, we had a lot of fans to send in donations last week toward our fine, I am going to pay it personally. All that money that has been sent in, that is still coming in, we're going to take and donate to the Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma. At least in every bad situation, something good will come out of it.

"Hopefully Kyle and myself will both end up learning something from this."

Busch denied having bumped RCR's Coulter in a retaliatory manner, or having been warned by Childress himself before their altercation last week.

"Me giving a congratulatory bump to Joey Coulter is what tipped him [Childress] over the edge there," said Busch. "I don't recall any time [or] face-to-face conversation where Richard did tell me that, 'If you touch another one of my cars I'm going to come find you.' I don't know if it was ever said in the media, but it was never relayed to me."

Busch added: "I didn't feel like I hit him [Coulter] all that hard. I just thought I rubbed him a little bit. Typically when you rub a guy, you don't see much damage from it.

"That's entirely my fault - I'm the one that instigated it there or initiated it... There was no malicious intent to be involved in hurting or damaging an RCR vehicle."

The feud between RCR and Busch goes back to past exchanges with the team's drivers, including one with Kevin Harvick last year during the Sprint Cup season finale and a further one on pit-road four weeks ago at Darlington, the last of which led to Busch being placed on probation - which remains in place until next week.