Busch and Stewart 'on the same page' after Daytona (cont'd)

"What happened this weekend, what happened at Talladega, none of this is new, and I think it's our responsibility to educate everybody that, hey, this isn't something that this is the first time this has happened. This is something that's been going on for a long time. There are little differences here and there about how the accident happened, but [remember] David Pearson and Richard Petty coming off of Turn 4, and both of their cars crashed, and who could get it started and get it limped across the start/finish line to win. There are just so many instances and cases where that's happened in the past, too. It's really no different than what we've got going on, other than the fact that instead of two cars being involved, now we have 32 cars in the pack. That's the only variable that's changed. It's a product of superspeedway racing."

Final Laps

Tony Stewart spins Kyle Busch on the final lap to set up a spectacular wreck and win the Coke Zero 400.

• Watch video

The two incidents Stewart cited -- the Yarborough-Allison crash in 1979, and the 1976 incident where Petty and Pearson crashed off the final turn in the Daytona 500, and Pearson nursed his wrecked car across the finish line to win -- both occurred before the implementation of the current restrictor plate, which followed Bobby Allison's airborne crash at Talladega in 1987, and over time has served to bunch the field. One common thread between the two most recent restrictor-plate finishes has been the practice of blocking, which at Daytona and Talladega has metamorphosed into almost a necessary evil.

"Some of the crashes that we've seen, just for instance Tony and Kyle's crash, you go back to some of the other crashes, Dale [Earnhardt] Jr., and [Brian] Vickers at Daytona, to me those were just blocking incidents where a guy is trying to block, and it's not the best choice to make, and you end up getting turned around and end up causing a crash because we're in a pack of it seems 13 cars every time," said Ryan Newman, Stewart's teammate at Stewart-Haas Racing. "It's just a product of the environment. NASCAR has done a good job of making the field more competitive for every car, and when you do that you put the cars more in a pack. The fans like that. The racing is a little bit more exciting that way, and it's just a product of that. It's up to the drivers to not put ourselves in positions to end up turned around or turn somebody else around at the same time."

According to Kyle Busch's brother Kurt, removing the restrictor plates simply isn't an option.

"If we took restrictor plates off, we would just be going too fast," said the elder Busch, who drives for Penske Racing. "And if somebody that had less experience in the car got sideways and wrecked at 220 [mph], that would be a hit that would almost be unsustainable. It would be a tough impact for anybody to survive. We keep the speeds where they are, that bunches up the cars a little bit more. What we need to do is really get in the drivers' heads. Get in there and say, 'Listen, we don't need anybody to get hurt by somebody making way too aggressive of a move.' But yet nobody cares because they're going for the win. That's what they want at the end of the day."

Even so, Stewart understood was Busch was trying to do Saturday night. "Kyle knew that my job was to get to his quarterpanel. He was trying to move up to defend his spot, and nobody in his position would have just stayed there and let somebody drive back by him," he said. "You've got to do something, and he wasn't trying to wreck us, he was just trying to make me make a move to slow me down."

The end result was that Busch slowed down, and his car was struck so hard by the onrushing vehicle of Kasey Kahne that the back end of the No. 18 Toyota lifted up in the air and came down on Kahne's roof. Tuesday also allowed Stewart to check in with Kahne, who was also competing in the Sharon Speedway event, and like Busch fortunately emerged unhurt from the Daytona melee.

"It was good to touch base and make sure we were all on the same page," Stewart said, "which we were."