Tony Stewart is never out of a race car for very long. Three days after his victory at Daytona International Speedway, the Sprint Cup points leader was at it again, this time behind the wheel of a winged sprint car at Sharon Speedway in Hartford, Ohio, to take part in a memorial event honoring the father of NASCAR driver Dave Blaney.

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I mean, there was no question on either one of our parts of what happened. I mean, we were instantly on the same page with it. It's just part of racing.

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TONY STEWART

But first, Stewart took care of a little business -- he called former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch, whose car was destroyed in an accident that occurred while the two drivers dueled for the lead on the final lap at Daytona. Stewart moved to pass Busch as they approached the checkered flag, Busch moved to block, and the No. 18 car went spinning into the wall.

According to Stewart, there were no hard feelings.

"When something like that happens, you want to make sure that both guys are on the same page with what happened, and we definitely were," Stewart said from Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where he took part in a media activity previewing the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard later this month. "I mean, there was no question on either one of our parts of what happened. I mean, we were instantly on the same page with it. It's just part of racing."

It was the second consecutive restrictor-plate race marred by a final-lap accident, following the crash in April at Talladega Superspeeday where the car of Carl Edwards went flying into the restraining fence after he tried to block eventual winner Brad Keselowski approaching the checkered flag. While those events have sparked plenty of debate about the racing at NASCAR's two biggest tracks, Stewart said such incidents are nothing new. He pointed to the infamous final-lap accident involving Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison in the 1979 Daytona 500, a crash that sparked a fight in the infield among the drivers involved, and drew a massive live television audience later credited with helping NASCAR make inroads nationwide.

"Something that happened before that phone call even happened, and I've mentioned it to Kyle and even kind of laughed about it, was the fact that everybody has made such a big deal about this all of a sudden happening. A good friend of mine reminded me of the very first TV race, the very first 500 that they showed on national TV, and it was Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough -- same type of incident on the backstretch for the win," Stewart said.

"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.

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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."