by Darrell Waltrip

Highlight of the Day Kurt Busch captures the 2004 Nextel Cup Championship. More NASCAR Video

I guess I had a kneejerk reaction, and I think the key word there would be "jerk."

I think it was Dale Earnhardt Inc. director of competition Richie Gilmore who said you can't take points off the board after the game is over. Well, maybe in other sports you can't, but you certainly can in NASCAR. In no way am I condoning what Earnhardt Jr. said, but I am looking at the 10-race playoff and realizing how precious points are. It will be a tight title battle, probably between Kurt Busch, Earnhardt Jr. and maybe Jeff Gordon.

Upon further review, I have decided that the more appropriate penalty would have been a very, very, very significant fine — maybe in the $100,000 to $200,000 range. When you start handing out a couple hundred thousand dollars in fines, it hits close to home with every driver that I know. It gets their attention.

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Taking points away at this point in the season probably wasn't the right thing to do, and I'm basing my thoughts on the Chase for the Championship. Points are a precious commodity right now, and Earnhardt Jr.'s comment had nothing to do with what happened on the race track. It didn't have anything to do with the car itself, which was legal. Everything on the track was clean. In this instance, NASCAR could have taken a little more time and thought about all of the repercussions.

I was one of the people who said NASCAR had to take away points because of the precedent that they set earlier in the season with Busch drivers Ron Hornaday and Johnny Sauter, but quite honestly, earlier in the season is not as devastating as it is right now so a large fine right out of a driver's pocket would have been a more appropriate penalty for the infraction.

So many times it seems the punishment never fits the crime, and in this case, NASCAR's penalty might be a very good example.