LAS VEGAS -- An impromptu meeting of two Earnhardt Ganassi Racing teammates in Turn 3 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday crushed two pretty good cars' hopes for decent Shelby American finishes.

The passionate Juan Montoya never backed off his venomous feeling for his teammate immediately after the accident and after 400 miles on-track, but Jamie McMurray -- who lost as much as Montoya -- was more compassionate.

“

He's just trying to prove to people he can drive a race car and I guess he isn't doing too many favors on this team. It really ruined our day [and] for the Chase, this doesn't help.

”

-- JUAN MONTOYA

McMurray said it would be better if fans and media made more effort to understand the context of the remarks.

"Oh, you're probably just frustrated for what happened on the race track, so you guys [media] probably shouldn't put a lot of stock into what he said," McMurray said. "When you ask somebody something immediately after getting crashed, they typically don't have nice things to say."

In the aftermath of the season's third Cup Series race, Daytona 500 winner McMurray was 34th Sunday and left Vegas 14th in the standings and Montoya was even worse: 37th in the race and 26th in the standings.

With McMurray losing 143 points to championship leader Kevin Harvick in just two races and Montoya a whopping 258 out of the lead, and a hardly minimal 127 out of a berth in the Chase -- though he has 23 races to make that up -- the ramifications of the event aren't yet fully known.

It's safe to say no one was thrilled Sunday, least of all Montoya who, after making a big jump last season in his third season in stock cars, has blown up and been in a wreck in two consecutive events after starting the season 10th at Daytona.

The teammates' wreck, which also ruined polesitter and hometown favorite Kurt Busch's day, began on Lap 93 on a restart after the fourth of seven caution flags. When Montoya reached the garage after that with his badly damaged No. 42 Chevrolet he was incensed (watch video).

"[McMurray] runs straight into my ass," Montoya said. "He nearly ran me into the fence in [Turn] 2 as well. I don't know. I'm sure [McMurray] is going to say, 'Oh, I didn't mean that.'

"Every time I'm around him, he wants to run the s--t out of me. I don't know if it's OK to say that but I just did [laughing]. On the restart I was inside of him, I think he got tight and never lifted. I didn't hit the [Turn 2] fence because -- it was a miracle.

"Then I arced it into [Turn] 3 and he just plain and simple wrecked us. He's just trying to prove to people he can drive a race car and I guess he isn't doing too many favors on this team. It really ruined our day [and] for the Chase, this doesn't help. We had a problem last week with the motor [finishing 37th] and this this week. It's painful." (Continued)