Stewart spins, struggles to stay quiet with frustration (cont'd)

Stewart was referring to an incident during the Aaron's 312, when Stewart and Gilliland made contact, which resulted in Gilliland spinning.

Cooler heads finally prevailed, as Stewart met Gilliland in the garage area later, had what was described as an amiable discussion and shook hands, according to Stewart's spokesman, Mike Arning.

"I was on the inside and there was two cars on the outside of me and we got together a little bit," Gilliland said. "But that's just the way these races end, especially when you've got a green-white-checkered."

Stewart started out in a great mood Sunday morning. He started 32nd but knew he had a car that could quickly get to the front and hopefully stay there. Even after being assessed a drive-through penalty for entering pit lane too quickly on Lap 44, Stewart admitted he was in the wrong.

"I can promise you I was probably 10 mph over the speed limit when I came in," Stewart said. "I just hadn't practiced it all weekend and I thought I was going to be all right. The biggest fear was that I didn't want to slide the tires because I thought we were going to do a two-tire stop. That carried too much momentum into the pit box."

Running by himself, Stewart was losing two seconds a lap to the pack. So it didn't take long for Stewart to go a lap down. Ironically, a debris caution 30 laps later gave Stewart the free pass.

He lost the draft again shortly after the green flag, dropping 18 seconds behind after narrowly avoiding another car. Stewart was able to close the gap when Clint Bowyer crashed on Lap 81, then survived another potential problem when he had to switch to his backup battery after the primary began to lose its charge.

Following his final pit stop on Lap 164, Stewart was 21st, but advanced to 13th -- wedged between Jimmie Johnson and eventual winner Jeff Gordon following a caution for debris 10 laps later. Those three led a charge from the bottom groove, with Stewart reaching seventh at the point where David Reutimann's blown engine brought out the yellow to set up the two-lap shootout.