CONCORD, N.C. -- Joe Gibbs stood on stage before Saturday's All-Star Race, holding his grandson's hand as the 5-year-old offered his prayer to the heavens on behalf of the drivers.

By the end of the race, all hell had broken loose and the owner of Joe Gibbs Racing had to do a little more hand-holding in the hauler -- only this time it was with two of his own drivers in the likes of Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin.

Busch enraged

What Kyle Busch thought was going to be the winning pass in the All-Star Race turned into something quite different.

• Watch

Busch was gunning for the lead with eight laps to go when he was blocked by teammate Denny Hamlin during the final segment of the main event at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Busch ended up in the wall and eventually out of contention.

Believing he had the race won, Busch wasted no time warning his team to keep him away from Hamlin at the end of the night -- even using the word "kill" in a moment of frustration.

"Somebody better keep me away from Denny Hamlin after this race,'' Busch screamed into his radio. "I swear to God, I'm going to kill that [expletive]. His entire [expletive] fault! I had this race won! It was won!''

Busch eventually made his way to the garage, parked his race car in front of Hamlin's hauler, the latter making his entrance moments later. Both drivers spent about 20 minutes with their owner inside before Busch exited to the side, declined interviews and left Hamlin to give his own version of events.

"First, he [Busch] got a big run off the corner. I was clear getting in and basically I just throttled off extremely early," Hamlin described.

"Really it was a bad corner. He was going to go by me. I'm looking out my front windshield and he says I'm clear and so I'm going to use all the race track I can. The problem is, Kyle had a run to the outside, and with me moving up getting real tight, it then took some air away from the front of his car and he slid up in the wall."

Hamlin said he knew his teammate was frustrated but doubted anything would have gone differently if the roles were reversed. He said Busch was as mad as fire at the beginning of their meeting after the race, but calmed down toward the end.

"I just came from the back with no practice and got back to the front where we needed to be and I felt like if gave up the lead right there I was going to give up the win," Hamlin said. "So I don't think Kyle would do anything different if he was in my situation."

Hamlin didn't hesitate to find the silver lining in the cloud either, explaining Saturday's tangle was a good problem to have between him and his teammate.

"For two guys to be wanting to go for the win like they are, it's really all we can ask for. Myself, I'm so confident that one of the two of us are going to win that 600 next weekend."

Hamlin said he conveyed to Busch -- that as a leader -- it was his job to do everything he could to win and said the All-Star Race was a much different beast than what a points race is. Moving forward, both drivers agreed that their organization and its unity were more important than letting their dispute linger.

"The one thing is we don't need to let it affect these [JGR] team guys. They work with each other inside the race shop and the important thing for me is that everyone gets along, because right now everything is going good between the 11 and the 18 on the race track," Hamlin said.

"We're both battling for race wins each and every week. This is like the fifth or sixth time [this season] we've been beside each other with less than 10 [laps] to go. This is not going to be the last time. What's good is we have an understanding of how we race each other.

"Whether it goes back to Phoenix or any other week, when two teams skirmish between each other and the two drivers don't like to talk to each other, all you do is go backwards. There's no doubt about it."

Asked about what changes now between the two drivers, Hamlin didn't see things looking much different on the horizon.

"We don't need to change anything that we're doing week in and week out. Kyle brought up a great point -- what should we expect when we come to this race? Do we need to have a meeting beforehand and say, 'OK, we don't share the same jerseys today, is it every man for himself?' My feeling was -- 10 laps to go, I'm afraid so, we're not teammates," Hamlin said.

"I think we both have an understanding of that and it's good from here on forward. Kyle is the most talented person in this garage and he gets it. He just gets a little hot under the collar sometimes.''

Gibbs later dismissed Bush's passionate discussion over the radio about Hamlin and doesn't expect any problems moving forward.

"I think in pro sports, if you've been on the sidelines or you've been in racing you're going to get people get mad about things. It's spur of the moment-type things. I think what was much more meaningful is we met in there," Gibbs said. "They talked it over and I think both of them expressed what they felt about what happened on the race track. I feel good about it and I think they're ready to go race as teammates.