Johnson, Kurt Busch offer different takes on brush (cont'd)

Johnson eventually recovered enough to finish eighth, but that was somewhat disappointing for him after losing the lead on the botched restart so late in the race.

"It was one of those days. I probably had this thing won at one point, and then one of those restarts didn't work out so well for us," Johnson said. "Everybody was out of control back there, racing and body-slamming. The 83 [Brian Vickers] and 11 went after it a little bit. We were bump-drafting down the straightaways. That was some wild racing right there. I didn't think we could race like that on a mile-and-half [track]."

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I'm trying to decide what's going on with the 48. I've lost a little bit of respect for him.

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KURT BUSCH

Busch was extremely upset about all the wild racing, which he blamed mostly on Johnson. He also indicated that he's wondering if Johnson has some issues with him.

"It looked like the 48 just ran out of room. We got spun together at Sonoma and got hit here again. I'm trying to decide what's going on with the 48. I've lost a little bit of respect for him. I gave him room -- and he pounded us into the fence coming off Turn 4," Busch said.

"Then we got a tire rub. Luckily we got a yellow to come in and fix it, instead of fencing it. ... I mean, we were running eighth-to-12th and had an OK car. But when he had that bad restart, man, he was like a ping-pong ball just bouncing off guys."

Johnson said he had no doubts that Busch hit him on purpose -- and was making plans to do so again when he thought better of it.

"I don't know if it cost me the win, but he certainly body-slammed me pretty hard," Johnson said. "What's funny is that he was coming to hit me again and he saw the 24 on the apron and I think then he realized I didn't run him up the track on purpose.

"You know, at the end of the race everybody's tempers are high. He's one of those guys whose temper can get away from him. When he first hit me, I was like, 'Man, this is racing. This isn't necessary.' But then he backed off."

Of course, Busch realized nothing of the sort. He made it clear after the race that he didn't appreciate the initial contact caused by Johnson. Asked if he deliberately gave Johnson a retaliatory shot immediately afterward, Busch replied: "I didn't wreck him; I got wrecked."

Busch then was ushered away by Tom Roberts, his public relations man, before he could answer any more questions. Johnson sounded like he thought the incident would be forgotten by the time the two race against each other again in two weeks at Indianapolis. The Sprint Cup Series gets a rare weekend off next weekend.

"First I have to find out if he's mad. I kind of thought it just was a racing thing. But the fact that everybody's asking about it makes me wonder," Johnson said.

"We'll see. We'll talk at some point. The good thing is that you always end up running into each other. You end up talking at driver intros or something. It never fails. You run into somebody on the track and the next week you get put in the back of a pickup truck with 'em [for pre-race driver introductions]."