Stewart denies bumping Busch

On lap 62 of 70, Stewart seemed to touch the rear-end of race leader Kyle Busch between turns 1 and 2, which made the No. 5 car of the Hendrick Motorsports driver go loose, allowing Stewart through to take the lead and eventually win the race.

"I don't think we touched him," said Stewart, who claimed his third Shootout victory. "It looked really close, obviously, but I don't believe we touched him.

"I think that with the way this tyre is, if we'd have touched him and sent him up the race track like that, I think he would have crashed for sure."

Stewart, who claimed a check for $215,000 (USD) for winning the annual non-points event, said he was impressed by Kyle Busch's car control to avoid an accident.

"The first time he got loose and missed the bottom," Stewart said. "I thought he did a pretty good job of just being able to counter that move and being able to come back down.

"But when he came back down, it got him really loose, and that was probably one of the best saves I have seen here in a long, long time."

Despite admitting Stewart worked with him to stay at the front of the pack during the race, Kyle Busch said Stewart just took him out of the way.

"Stewart was the man for a while, pushing, helping and keeping me up there," he said. "I guess he got tired of reading 'Carquest' (on the car's bumper) and decided to get me out of the way. That's racing."

Busch led 39 of the 70 laps, changing only two tyres on his last pitstop to stay ahead for the last restart. After losing the lead, he slipped down the order finishing seventh.