Stewart-Montoya tiff leaves behind trail of wreckage

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Two wrecks in the space of 13 laps Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway left four men disappointed, one irate, another confused and, for all intents and purposes, set up Jeff Burton's victory in the Samsung 500.

The potential race winners included Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kyle Busch, who were both running in the top three when their hopes were crushed; and Tony Stewart, winner of the most recent TMS Nextel Cup race, who had a top-10 car for most of the race.

Lap-by-Lap: Texas

There was plenty of action at Texas late in the race, but it all began with a bang, as well, with a multi-car crash on Lap 1.

• Complete story

The first of the two cautions, at Lap 240, came when Stewart and Juan Montoya, who were racing for ninth and 10th, respectively, came together in Turns 3 and 4.

The dispute left some ill feeling among the two fiery competitors and the Colombian, Montoya, shaking his head after parking his No. 42 Dodge.

"I don't know," Montoya said. "He [Stewart] just got really close to me, he got me loose, I went into him and he spun.

"I tried to pass him three or four times and he never gave me room. I went in a little different and got really loose, and I don't know what happened. We touched a little bit and the next I see he's spinning."

Stewart, whose temper is legendary, shook a verbal fist after he exited his No. 20 Chevy post-race. Apparently, he was also upset with Montoya, who competed in his eighth career Nextel Cup race, about a move the former open-wheel standout pulled on a restart.

"He just got inside of us and wrecked us -- it's just racing, I guess," Stewart said of the spin. "When you're a rookie you do stuff like that so it's just part of racing.

"He pulled [a rookie mistake] before that. He was racing, trying to get by [when Stewart wrecked]. You earn respect by doing things that are smart out there and trying to pull out of line with 110 laps to go coming to the green flag doesn't make much sense.

"If you race people with respect you get respect. If you do stuff like that and try to race people before you get to the start/finish line [you don't get respect].

"Then when I raced him, I raced him. And he took us out. That's just what happened. I think he was [too aggressive] on the restart. I've kind of adopted a Matt Kenseth motto. (Continued)