FORT WORTH, Texas -- David Gilliland wasn't sorry for hitting Juan Montoya in Sunday's Cup race.

He was, however, sorry for hitting him so hard that it wrecked both their racecars.

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It's just a bad situation and we want to prevent it from happening again on the racetrack. We'll see where it goes. It was reiterated to the guys that they have to control their emotions.

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JIM HUNTER

"I meant to get him loose, I didn't mean to wreck him and ruin both of our days," Gilliland said. "It was just one of those racing deals, you know. I wanted to come down behind him and I just mis-judged and clipped him there."

On Lap 264, Gilliland drove hard into the rear of Montoya, forcing the No. 42 machine up the racetrack and into the backstretch wall (watch video). The damage was so extensive, Montoya was unable to drive the car back to the garage.

Regardless of intentions, Gilliland, driver of the No. 38 Yates Racing Ford was called to pit road and held in his pit stall for five green-flag laps of racing. And once NASCAR officials realized Montoya's car was beyond repair they instructed Gilliland and his No. 38 crew to park it for the day.

Montoya explained what transpired before the crash.

"I was running high the lap before and he went inside of me," Montoya said. "He ran straight to the wall and I tried to get away. He put me into the wall. So I went into [Turn 1] and I punted him just a little bit to say, 'Hey, you're running like 50 laps behind.' I hit him a little bit. If I had wanted to wreck him, I would have wrecked him."

Montoya said Gilliland then retaliated.

"He came out of [Turn] 4 and just wrecked us," said Montoya, who was running inside the top 10 before the incident. "It was like he said, 'I'm better than him, so I'm going to wreck him.' The decent thing is not doing it ... It's frustrating when people do things like that."

Gilliland was called to the NASCAR hauler for a meeting with the brass -- Mike Helton, president of NASCAR, and Robin Pemberton, vice president of competition -- regarding his "overly aggressive" actions.

"They [the 38 team] got their side of the story and they'll talk to [Montoya on Monday]," said Jim Hunter, NASCAR spokesman. "Hopefully that is the end of it. We've got two wrecked racecars seemingly for no reason. A driver has to maintain control of his emotions on the racetrack, regardless of what had happened before on the racetrack. It's just a bad situation and we want to prevent it from happening again on the racetrack. We'll see where it goes. It was reiterated to the guys that they have to control their emotions."

And it appears Gilliland will get off for good behavior. (Continued)