DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Tony Stewart nailed his thoughts on the likelihood of winning the Pepsi 400 for the third consecutive time little more than 24 hours before his tangle with a teammate while they ran first and second cost him a shot at NASCAR legend David Pearson's Daytona record.

Stewart had won Daytona's mid-summer race the past two years, and started Saturday night's event from the sixth position.

"It'd be really cool, obviously, to be able to [win three in a row] -- but winning one is hard, winning two is very difficult and winning three in a row is much more difficult than that," Stewart said following his qualifying lap late Friday afternoon. "We just got to take it one lap at a time [Saturday] night."

But on only the 15th of 160 laps at Daytona International Speedway, according to his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin, Stewart drafted up behind Hamlin's car in Turn 4 and hit it, at least once, which created a wild, smoky melee that involved virtually the entire field and sent the teammates to the garage area (watch video).

"I'm not sure [what happened]," Hamlin said. "I didn't get to see it but I definitely felt a tap from behind. The cars were starting to lose their handle there and I don't know -- I was just trying to hang on.

"It's just one of those things -- it's superspeedway racing. I was holding it wide-open every single lap and that one in particular I didn't get off the corner as good as what I had before -- but everyone's got to be aware that stuff can happen and it definitely did."

Team owner Joe Gibbs, the coach of the NFL's Washington Redskins who tries to make as many races as he can throughout the summer, said the incident, and its aftermath, was a clash of two intense competitors.

"The two guys are very competitive, we're running up front and we've got real good cars and that's something that can happen," Gibbs said after visiting the garage with his son, team president J.D. Gibbs. "That's really what happened -- it's just one of those unfortunate things.

"Both guys are going as hard as they can and I think both of these guys are real competitive. I think they're good teammates and I think it's just something that happened [Saturday night]."

Gibbs said he had neither seen the crash, which occurred while he was in one of his team's pit areas, nor heard Stewart's comments on his in-car radio and the live radio broadcast.

Stewart said Hamlin had "tried to crash us on Friday in practice and didn't get it done so he finished it off [Saturday]."

"I talked to Tony," Gibbs said. "And he didn't say any [criticism of Hamlin] to me."

Gibbs also said, as far as he could tell, impatience didn't play a part in the crash.

"I think we were up front and that's where you wanted to be," Gibbs said. "We wanted to be up front and stay away from everything, and it was just unfortunate it wound up being us. We were probably in as good a position as we could be in.

"Both guys are frustrated and I'm sure Denny feels bad it got away from him, there. It's a shame because we had two good cars. It's a competitive sport and when you've got good stuff and you're up front, it can happen. I hate it, but it did. It was just a racing incident, really."

Hamlin agreed.

"It's what happens at this racetrack," Hamlin said. "It really doesn't matter either way, who it is, whether it's him or somebody else -- but I hope he don't try to blame it on me."

That's exactly what happened. The incident began when Stewart, running second behind Hamlin, drove his No. 20 Chevrolet up behind Hamlin's No. 11 as the field exited Turn 4.

"The No. 11 just stopped for no reason, right in the middle of Turn 4," Stewart said. "I'm sure he was getting tight because for three laps in a row we were catching him through the center and the exit of the corner.

"All of a sudden he just stops on the exit of [Turn] 4 in front of 42 cars and I guess expects all of us to drive around him. I don't know. It's tore up two really good racecars."

Stewart's assessment bemused Hamlin.

Lap-by-Lap

Jamie McMurray overcame a penalty to battle through the field for his last-lap victory at Daytona. Read how he did it.

• Complete story, click here
• Video highlights, click here

"It's tough to say [what happened]," Hamlin said. "I definitely had my foot in the throttle. My car had a little bit of a wiggle there, but I think Tony was a little bit closer to me than what he expected or he was closer than he was the lap before and I think maybe if he was trying to get underneath me it just got hung right there in my bumper and got into us.

"It happened so quick that I didn't see what happened. I thought I had it saved and then got hit again. That kind of put it overboard."

After the contact, Hamlin's car wobbled toward the inside apron as Stewart moved to the outside, but then Hamlin's car swerved abruptly to the right, where it pinned Stewart's car to the outside wall.

Behind them two-thirds of the field sped down pit road to avoid the melee, which gathered up Reed Sorenson and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who collided at the pit entrance.

Hamlin's car, heavily damaged in the right-front corner and down the right side, came to rest in the tri-oval grass several hundred yards short of the start/finish line. A wrecker brought it to the team's garage stall while Hamlin went to the infield care center by ambulance.

Within minutes, he was released, left by a back door and was driven by golf cart around a mob of media waiting outside the care center's main entrance, to the side gate of the garage, from where he ran to his car's stall on the opposite side of the area.

Stewart was able to make two more laps on the racetrack, where he made at least one pit stop. But his car was too badly damaged to continue and, while losing reverse gear, was returned to his garage stall -- three spots away from Hamlin's.

Stewart's frustration was doubly evident, as, when his crew told him over the radio that Hamlin's No. 11 crew was going to help push Stewart's car toward the garage, he said "don't let them touch this [expletive] thing."

Both men did media interviews at their respective garage stalls, with Stewart saying "If your car is driving that bad, pull over and let someone else lead the race.""

Stewart's car returned to the race on Lap 51, 34 laps down and in 41st position. His first lap of the track was a second slower than leader Clint Bowyer, but Stewart was able to ultimately run laps within seven-tenths of a second of the leaders.

He finished 38th and was running 35 laps behind race-winner Jamie McMurray at the finish. Stewart unofficially dropped a spot in the standings, from sixth to seventh, and now trails Carl Edwards by 74 points for sixth.

Hamlin rejoined the race 61 laps down in 43rd position, and was able to turn laps roughly equivalent with Stewart's.

In the end, Hamlin was never able to extricate himself from last, where he finished running 61 laps down. Hamlin remained second in the standings, but dropped from 156 to 277 points behind leader Jeff Gordon, who finished fifth.

Gibbs, who is used to dealing with athletes' frustration in the violent world of pro football, said he saw little need to take further action.

"They talk to each other," Gibbs said, denying a need for calling a meeting of the two drivers. "I think they're good teammates, they run extremely well together and I think that's just part of being teammates.

"I think what happens is it's very competitive and hard-fought, and both our guys are very aggressive and they love to race. They're good teammates and they want to win every race, so sometimes guys get upset, which is understandable. I hate it for everybody else, and both our drivers do, too."

Stewart's initial comments, while he waited for his team to repair his car, were more pointed, saying he didn't have trouble getting along with Hamlin.

"No. He's a young guy and he wants to be successful," Stewart said. "But I don't know if he knows the definition of 'team' right now."

Hamlin deferred to his two-time champion teammate, but begged to differ.

"I do [know the meaning of teammates]," Hamlin said. "I figured I did -- but I'm going to be the bigger man and I'll take the blame on this.

"If he wants to blame it on me I'll be the bigger man -- I'll take responsibility for it. He's been around this sport longer than I have and he probably knows more than I do, so I'll just take it for what it's worth."

After finishing second, however, Kyle Busch said everyone should take Tony with a few grains of salt.

"Normally the leader is wide-open," Busch said. "I was wide-open when Stewart ran over me in the Bud Shootout earlier this year, too.

"For that situation to happen that early in the race, yeah, it was too early. Like I said last week, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart is Tony Stewart. He's a great racecar driver and he can drive the wheels off of anything. And when he says something, we're just going to believe it."

Hamlin, who was presented with Stewart's comments midway through his interview, wasn't sure how to take the whole thing.

"Who knows?" he said. "Me and Tony have always had a good relationship on the racetrack. We get frustrated with each other at times for sure, but I don't know. This early [in the race] it's really frustrating -- but it's me and Tony."

Hamlin wouldn't confirm that Stewart should accept the blame.

"It's tough to put blame on anyone, especially since I haven't seen the replay or what happened," Hamlin said. "I know from inside the racecar I definitely got hit coming off the corner -- but the circumstances that led up to that I'm not sure of.

"I'll tell you -- I've been in a pretty good mood here in the last month, so I'm going to take it for what it's worth and move on. Luckily we're in the position that we are in the Chase right now and we're going to move on."