Associated Press

Fans watch as Juan Pablo Montoya (42) loses control and gets passed by David Reutimann (right) during the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 in Loudon, N.H.

LOUDON, N.H. -- NASCAR penalized Juan Pablo Montoya two laps after he intentionally wrecked series points leader Kyle Busch late in Sunday's race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

The caution was out for a crash when Montoya and Busch made contact and Montoya retaliated. He spun Busch and Busch's car collected Montoya's.

Both continued. Busch finished 25th and Montoya was 32nd after the penalty. Since series officials penalized Montoya during the race he will not be further penalized this week.

Montoya admitted he wrecked Busch.

"[Busch] hit me under caution, he hit me under green and I retaliated,'' Montoya said after being summoned to meet with series officials. "Did I go a little bit too far retaliating? Yeah. I told them the only reason I did that was I was defending myself.''

Busch was surprised by what happened.

"I don't know what his beef is,'' said Busch, who admitted to slight contact with Montoya during that caution.

Busch said he and Montoya made contact earlier in the race when Busch passed Montoya.

"I got by him in [turns] three and four and he run up the race track in my left rear,'' Busch said.

Decisions, decisions

Teams are studying an offer by NASCAR to expand testing next season to possibly creating no limits of when, where and how often teams can test. It's likely teams will want something along the lines of a certain number of days (maybe 20 or so per team) with the ability to go to any Cup track they want.

Until teams respond to NASCAR's request, there will be many opinions. Some drivers don't want to see expanded testing.

"It's my opinion that we should not test, period,'' Carl Edwards said. "If you open up a test day, everyone is going to go, everyone is going to learn whatever they learn that day and you're in the same position you were if nobody went. So, if they have things that they need to test like tires or a car at a track, NASCAR ought to have a test team and they can hire drivers to go test safety things. But for performance, there should be no testing. Competition will be the same.''

Kevin Hamlin, crew chief for Brian Vickers, says he believes a limited number of test days would work best.

"It's just going to sort itself out because the drivers aren't going to want to go test for every event and the car owners aren't going to be able to afford to test for every event,'' Hamlin said.

Moving up

A week after falling out the top 12 in points, Kevin Harvick returned to a Chase transfer spot. Harvick's 14th-place finish moved him to 12th in the points. He knocked Matt Kenseth back to 13th in the season standings. Kenseth finished 18th in the race.

Karma

A week after a flat tire in the final laps cost Elliott Sadler a top-five finish, pit strategy helped him place a season-best fifth Sunday.

"It makes up for what happened to us at Sonoma because my team definitely deserved a top-five there,'' Sadler said.

Making changes

Bruton Smith, whose Speedway Motorsports Inc., company purchased New Hampshire Motor Speedway in January, plans some changes. Smith says he wants to add lights to the 1.058-mile speedway and hopes to have an Indy Racing League race there. As to other changes, he was coy.

Pit stops

Although he won, Kurt Busch made less money than runner-up Michael Waltrip, who collected $209,333. Busch earned $204,950. The difference is contingency prize money the two teams are eligible to receive. ... Reed Sorenson's sixth-place finish was his best result since placing fifth in the season-opening Daytona 500. ... Casey Mears finished seventh to score back-to-back top-10 finishes for the first time this season.