Busch, Stewart disagree on collision

The drivers were battling over eighth place when the contact occurred. Busch was on the inside line, with Stewart attempting to keep the nose of his Chevrolet on the outside. As they went onto the main straight, the left front of Stewart's car made contact with the right rear of Busch's Dodge

"I raced the guy all day long and for some reason he just didn't give an inch," Busch said. "We raced about 15 laps there side by side and I had about 90 percent of my car past him and he wrecked me flat out.

"I was maybe not clear by a few inches, but he bumped me on another restart, he hit me on another restart. I have no idea what Tony Stewart had for us today. He finally wrecked me. He got accomplished what he wanted to do. I'm still very confused by it."

Busch then aggressively stopped his car beside Stewart's on pit road and forced Stewart's jackman Jason Lee, who was inspecting the damage after the wreck, to jump in front of the hood of the #20 car to avoid being run over by Busch.

"I wanted to make a point, but when you make a point like that it always ends up making it worse," said an apologetic Busch.

"It was my fault for doing that. The issue was out on the racetrack. It was not on pit road."

Busch is expected to receive a further punishment from NASCAR for the pit incident. Officials ordered him to park his car in the garage for the rest of the afternoon.

Stewart said he didn't see Busch coming into the pits to retaliate for what happened on the track and claimed the incident was entirely Busch's fault.

"I didn't see [Busch] until the last minute, but he about hit one of our crew guys," said Stewart.

"We got together off of [turn] four. It's a shame because we've just been racing him the way he's raced us for a whole year. He's raced us every lap like it pays a million dollars. He never was clear and he came off the corner and crashed both of us."

The Joe Gibbs driver rejected Busch's suggestion that Stewart had intended to take him out of the race.

"No, I've never tried to wreck him," Stewart said. "I've had plenty of chances to wreck the guy. That's not what it was about. It's about racing people with respect and he hasn't done that with anybody for a year.

"You finally get to the point where you're tired of giving guys positions. Most of the guys are pretty good. There are only a couple of bad apples out there and he's one of them.

"You don't see me having problems with Mark Martin and the guys that run up front every week. His brother figured it out and his brother and I have gotten along great and have no problems."

While Stewart returned to the track after his car was repaired and finished 40th, 73 laps down on winner Martin Truex Jr, Busch was classified 42nd.