Gibbs drivers wondering what might've been at N.H. (cont'd)

The final insult for the three-car JGR ensemble developed between the last green flag and that final caution.

Kyle Busch, the Sprint Cup leader by 103 points at the start of the race who uncharacteristically failed to get real close to running in the top 10 all day, got involved in some fender-rubbing racing with Juan Montoya.

Montoya took the final caution at the start/finish line and then took a sharp left turn into Busch's right-rear quarter panel. That spun Busch at the end of the frontstretch but he collected Montoya's No. 42 Dodge in the process.

Montoya understood what had happened well enough to address it immediately. And just as plainly, he explained his actions both before and after he was summoned to the NASCAR office trailer to receive a two-lap penalty that sent him from 25th to 32nd, the last car two laps down.

"On the [Lap 279] restart, I got around the outside of [Busch] in Turn 2 and he just went wide like I wasn't even there -- he crowded me towards the wall," Montoya said. "Down the backstraight he hit me on braking for Turn 3 like he was trying to wreck me.

"I thought we had a decent car and I don't appreciate when people race me like that. The caution came out and under caution he hit me again, and I retaliated, you know? I'm a nice guy, but I'm not an idiot."

Montoya wasn't any more uncomfortable after leaving his meeting with the officials.

"I think it's OK for what I did," Montoya said of the penalty. "He hit me under caution, and he hit me under green and I retaliated. Did I [go] a little bit too far in retaliating? Yeah."

To his credit, Busch addressed the situation -- even if he didn't really understand it.

"I have no idea," Busch said of the incident's cause. "I got a run on him earlier and I got on the outside and he kind of kept coming up a little bit. I didn't turn down into him and just barely touched his quarter panel.

"We came to that caution flag and he thought he beat me to the caution flag and I was just trying to get around the 40 car, who was in front of us there. I touched him on the door and he just turned left and spun me down the front straightaway. I don't know what his beef is."

Busch, who was in 17th when the caution flew but ended up 25th after recovering from the spin, is now just 64 points clear of second-place Jeff Burton, who finished 12th.

After the wild ending, JGR president J.D. Gibbs walked out of the sopping wet garage looking like he faced a one-mile walk to his car without an umbrella -- trying to convince himself with every step he took he'd dry out, eventually.

"It's just part of the deal, you know -- sometimes it happens," Gibbs said, the disappointment evident on his face and in his voice. "But let me tell you, you can take a gamble and you stay out and it works out -- but more often than not, it doesn't."

As bad as the mood was for at least two of his three teams, Gibbs said no special pep talks would be necessary in Sunday's aftermath. Hamlin actually picked up a spot in the points, to seventh, and even with his situation Stewart picked up two positions, to ninth.

"Really, for Denny and [Stewart's] 20 team -- they know they were good," Gibbs said. "All those guys, even with the way they ran, you had to come in and be conservative -- to know you were right.

"I think it's frustrating with Kyle, because he got spun at the very end and he had a shot to get into the top 10 -- or at least 11th or 12th when it was all said and done -- so that's frustrating."

That was definitely the case, as moments earlier Busch had exited the garage looking like he'd come from the very center of the cloud that was deluging the speedway. Earlier, he'd talked of his car problems.

"It wasn't something that was going to get fixed on the racetrack," Busch said. "We needed to go to the garage and work on it. We missed something all weekend and we pretty much knew it was going to be a dismal day, but we tried to make the most of it.

"If we would have stayed out, then we could have won the race -- we could have been where [Kurt Busch] was. I didn't feel like that was the way to win a race, just to stay out and play by the rain. We did what we did to try to pass some more cars.

"Right now we're the point leaders, but if we're not tomorrow that's OK because we're in Chase contention and that's what matters. [Sunday] was a frustrating day and all we can do is go into next week and try to run better."

That's keeping Stewart going, as well.

"The good thing is no matter what the outcome is [Sunday], we get to do it again in six more days [at Daytona] so we just do what we can," Stewart said. "We're racers and that's what you do every week. Forty-three of us start the race each week and only one guy can win."