LAS VEGAS -- On Saturday, Tony Stewart brought out the big guns.

A day earlier, Stewart had blasted Goodyear for the harder left-side tires the manufacturer brought to Las Vegas Motor Speedway. But in Stewart's view, there was plenty of blame to go around.

After finishing third in Saturday's Busch Series Sam's Town 300 at LVMS, Stewart also questioned the wisdom of changes to the track -- repaving the racing surface and re-banking the corners from 12 to 20 degrees -- that forced Goodyear to go to a harder tire than the Cup teams had used in January testing at the 1.5-mile speedway.

"They've spent millions of dollars and crashed a bunch of racecars and potentially could have hurt a bunch of guys [Saturday]," Stewart said after a race plagued with a record 12 cautions.

The frequency of crashes in the Busch race did little to enhance Stewart's enthusiasm for Sunday's Cup event.

"I want pillows on the right side of my car, and basically all around, in case I get wrecked," he said. "All I want to do is see if we can get [General Motors] to put some air bags in there and some pillows on the outside and go from there."

As a track owner himself, Stewart understands what motivated LVMS and its parent company, Speedway Motorsports Inc., to try to improve the quality of the racing.

"They're trying to do everything they can to ensure that they're going to sell this place out every year," Stewart said. "Nobody wants a situation like we had two weeks ago in California, where the place was half-empty. ...

"This racetrack is owned by the same group as [Lowe's Motor Speedway], and we went through the same situation. It's a domino effect. Phase one was changing the racetrack. Phase two was tire troubles. Didn't they learn anything the last time they did something like this?

"I didn't go to college. I'm not an engineer. I don't know anything, but I've sat my butt in a racecar for 27 years of my life, and I think I'm somewhat qualified to say that this wasn't the right change -- this wasn't going to accomplish their goal."

For owners who want to change their racetracks, Stewart has an alternative suggestion.

"My response to [LVMS president] Chris Powell [on Saturday] was, if you want the racing to get closer, build a half-mile track. It's pretty simple. If you can spend millions of dollars to do everything they did racetrack-wise and in the infield, they can make a half-mile racetrack or three-quarter-mile or a mile.

"The last time I checked, [.533-mile] Bristol's the most sought-after ticket on the circuit with a three-year waiting list. Where's the light switch? Is it not coming on anywhere? If I had a billion dollars, I'd build me another daggone Bristol and put me 160,000 seats in it like [Speedway Motorsports chairman] Bruton [Smith] did -- and laugh all the way to the bank.

"But they're not smart enough to do that."