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Kurt Busch has had a turbulent seven-year career in Cup racing. I’ll never forget the time Jimmy Spencer reached through his car window and poked him one in the beak.

Busch got what he deserved from Spencer, but of course NASCAR deemed the action was a detriment to stock car racing, so Spencer got the worst end of the deal. A lot of fans will remember Spencer for being a hot-head just like Busch. Spencer is just one in a line-up of drivers who have had run-ins with Busch, a driver who has turned out to be one of NASCAR’s most consistent bad boys.

When Roger Penske hired Busch to drive the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge following Rusty Wallace’s retirement, more than one set of eyebrows were raised in wonder. Penske was hiring a former Cup Champion and he apparently had visions of Busch continuing his championship caliber, placing Penske Racing in the winner circle many times, and winning Penske a Cup Championship. Unfortunately for Roger, it hasn’t worked out that way.

In his 49 starts with Penske Racing, Busch has won just one event; the 2006 Food City 500 at Bristol. He has scored 9 top five finishes, 15 top ten finishes, and won 6 Bud poles. Actually, Busch’s record for the 2006 season isn’t one to scoff at, there are a lot of drivers in Cup racing that wish they had done that well. That first season Busch’s on and off track bad boy antics gave Penske a black eye on more than one occasion. I was surprised that Penske didn’t dump him.

Busch’s latest on-track fiasco at Dover with Tony Stewart and his ensuing actions on pit road led NASCAR to park the No. 2 car halfway through the event. During the following week, motorsports writers speculated on the severity of the penalties that the sanctioning body would levy. NASCAR.com had a poll where fans could vote for the severity of Busch’s suspension; the voting didn’t look very good for him, apparently he doesn’t have very many fans. Some writers were bold enough to step up and predict that NASCAR would park Busch on Friday before qualifying at Pocono.

The sanctioning body didn’t park Busch. A lot of us have been observing the NASCAR hierarchy long enough to know that they’re unpredictable and inconsistent, to say the least. Some of us tend to think that a $100k fine and probation until the end of the season is a mere slap on the wrist. After 13 races this season, Busch has racked up a little over two million in purse money for Penske Racing, and you can figure that at least half of that goes to him, so he had to shell out a mere tenth of his presumed cut of the purse money with two thirds of the season remaining.

How much longer is Roger Penske going to tolerate Busch’s immature actions? I assume that Roger is the only one who knows the answer to that one. He put up with a lot of immature actions from Rusty Wallace for a lot of years. I remember one time Bill France Jr. fined Rusty for some of his antics and Rusty took advantage of it. He used it as a Public Relations ploy, hiring an armored truck to deliver the fine to France at the track, in pennies.

Now that Busch is officially on probation, his next escapade may very well get him a much needed lengthy suspension, giving Penske and Miller Lite time to reflect on the tenure of the troubled driver at Penske Racing.