Busch wants to clear air with Stewart

Stewart was upset with 20 year-old Busch following yesterday's race, but not for the obvious incident when Busch defended strongly from Stewart 11 laps from the end, which resulted in Stewart understeering into the wall and damaging his car.

Stewart's main complaint was that he didn't understand why Busch blocked him midway through the race.

This followed Stewart's comments made after February's Daytona 500 where, following a collision between the pair, Stewart said that Busch was "the one guy who was going to hurt somebody out there."

"I had to push so hard to get by Kyle," Stewart said after yesterday's race. "I just got tight behind him and brushed the wall. I'm not blaming Kyle for that because that was after the last pit stop.

"You've got less than 30 laps to go, you've got to race at that point. I have no ill feelings toward him over me hitting the wall while I was behind him.

"What I'm upset about is that with 80 laps to go I'm sitting there for 15-20 laps behind him trying to get by and he's holding us up for no reason.

"With 80 laps to go he's holding me up and we all have another pit stop to make. He should work on his car and go on. There's just an etiquette. I'm frustrated with it and I honestly think I have every right to be.

"There's absolutely no reason to hold a driver up when there's 80 laps to go."

Busch however, claimed ignorance in his second altercation with Stewart in three races, and couldn't understand why he was so upset.

"I wouldn't say he is picking on me," Busch said. "I would just have to say that maybe there was something that I did that I couldn't tell. I'm inside my race car and I can't see what I'm doing outside of it. If I slipped up and slid in front of him one time, and whatever, then it was just my mistake on that part.

"We need to have another sit-down I guess and try to figure out exactly what I did wrong so I can try to change it and fix it.

"But if I give up one spot to him, then I get aero-tight behind him and then I'm going back five, eight, or ten spots like I did. I think I gave up third spot to either him or Kahne or somebody.

"And then I fell all the way back to 8th and then the pit stop got me all the way back up to 5th. It was definitely one of those deals where when you get stuck back in traffic, it's hard to get clean air and pick your way back through, especially for my car today for some reason.

"I'll try to find his phone number during the week or go find him in Atlanta before practice starts to try to clear the air and get it over with and get it behind us."