Busch laments Burton incident

The Richard Childress Racing driver confronting the 25-year-old in the pits after the event last Sunday, and accused Busch of ruining his race. Busch made contact with Burton on the final restart 19 laps from the end, causing a left-rear puncture.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver says he understands Burton's heated post-race accusations but expects both to put the issue behind them.

"It was just a spot of the heat of the moment and what transpired on the race tack led to the incident on pit road after the race," said Busch. "I think that we can both move forward and go on and put this behind us and just try to race with dignity and respect as much as we did before."

Busch confirmed he did not talk to Burton during the week, but does not believe that to be a sign of any animosity between them. He explained his car had suffered some damage in a pit road incident with Brad Keselowski earlier during Sunday's race, something that contributed to the contact with Burton ending up with a cut tyre for his rival.

"He says there's no need to talk, so to me it's just going out there and try to do the same thing that I've always done," said Busch. "Until seeing a little bit of the replay and until seeing my car after the race I had no idea about how I touched him or cut his left [rear] tyre down.

"But after the race there's a four-inch piece of my car sticking out wider than it normally was. It was like a tyre-spear from the repairs that my guys did to the car. That's what got into his tyre and I had no idea that my car was six inches wider than what it was.

"That's no excuse for what happened, just didn't know that that was out there. It was unfortunate for him and those guys, they had a solid run going. I hate that they didn't get the good finish that they deserved but we got a solid third place finish that out team deserved."

Busch currently runs second in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings and last weekend's third place finish has him just 29 points off the lead in the championship.