DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- It's been said that restrictor-plate racing can be compared to a cattle stampede. If that's the case, Saturday night's Coke Zero 400 included an incident which considerably thinned the herd.

Touched off by contact between Jeff Burton and Kurt Busch on the backstretch, the Lap 148 accident wound up involving at least 20 cars and changed the complexion of the race from that point forward. Gone for the rest of the evening were luminaries like Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart and Juan Montoya. And as a result, Reed Sorenson, Mike Bliss and Scott Speed scored unexpected top-10 finishes.

Crashfest at Daytona

• Final laps get wild
• Big One at Daytona
• Busch crashes out of lead
• Ragan triggers three-car wreck

Thankfully no one was injured but the sheer number of destroyed cars overwhelmed NASCAR's safety force. It took nearly 20 minutes of red-flag time to clean up the mess, and by the time the race was resumed, the garage area was littered with the debris of cars that once were capable of going 190 mph.

The scariest moment may have been several seconds after the initial crash, when Mark Martin drove his battered No. 5 Chevrolet down pit road as flames licked from underneath the right-front fender. He finally stopped and was safely pulled from the car as firefighters put out the fire, which had spread underneath the hood.

"The fire was outside. It wasn't inside," Martin said. "It wasn't as bad as it looked. No big deal. I wish we hadn't been in that wreck. There was no way. I couldn't see anything and I couldn't get down. My spotter said get down. Well, I was going too fast."

Despite triggering the melee, Burton and Busch were able to continue. Busch who spun onto the apron but kept his No. 2 Dodge aimed in the correct direction, wound up seventh.

"I had a good run down the back straightaway, but not enough on Jeff Burton," Busch said. "I gave him two moves, he gave me two blocks. I lifted and got tapped from behind and got loose. That's when the big wreck all got started.

"One guy checks up and everybody comes in and piles on."

Burton, who bounced off Busch and then Sam Hornish Jr. to trigger the incident, somehow survived the rest of the night for a fifth-place finish in his No. 31 Chevrolet.

"I don't even know what happened," Burton said. "[Busch] was coming with a big head of steam and we got together. I don't know if it was my fault or his fault. It was one of our faults, and we wrecked half the field, unfortunately."

While Burton and Busch were bouncing off each other near the front of the field, those directly behind began to slow. That created a chain-reaction incident that blocked the entire backstretch at one point.

“

I saw [Keselowski] and [Sorenson] sideways and I couldn't tell you what else happened. I just know I got pile-drived. I saw [Johnson] sideways and myself sideways and up on two wheels. Right place, wrong time -- as usual for me.

”

-- RYAN NEWMAN

Brad Keselowski was following Juan Montoya.

"It was just plate racing," Keselowski said. "Everybody is racing hard, somebody gets loose in front of the pack and all heck breaks loose. I didn't see much because everyone just stopped in front of me and I had nowhere to go. By the time I checked up, it was just too late and caused a huge pileup in front of me."

Jimmie Johnson attempted to avoid the collision on the high side but was rammed hard into the outside retaining wall.

"I saw [Kurt Busch] down on the flat," Johnson said. "Then I was hit from behind and everything was trying to slow down and just got caught up in things. We came close, I mean, 380-something miles of not having a Big One and then we always seem to have that Big One at the end."

Ryan Newman was behind Keselowski and Reed Sorenson, and immediately realized he had nowhere to go.

"I saw [Keselowski] and [Sorenson] sideways and I couldn't tell you what else happened," Newman said. "I just know I got pile-drived. I saw [Johnson] sideways and myself sideways and up on two wheels. Right place, wrong time -- as usual for me."

Marcos Ambrose piled into the accident shortly thereafter.

"I'm just sick of crashing, man," Ambrose said. "It's just been a terrible year. I've had more hard licks this year than I've had in my whole career combined. ... I've got no idea what happened out there. Just checked up into the fence."

And Joey Logano couldn't avoid disaster.

"I saw a little bit of smoke and started to check up," Logano said. "It's just one of those deals. No avoiding it. It's just straight ahead of me and you're just along for the ride. It stinks, man. We need valuable points right now and we could've had a really good day."

The 20-car crash overshadowed Kyle Busch's most recent Daytona frustration. While leading on Lap 104, Busch wound up slamming nose-first into the backstretch barrier after contact with Montoya. After climbing angrily from his car, Busch tried to describe what caused him to appear to turn up the track into Montoya's car.

"Nobody really understands in these things [that] the draft, when you're beside somebody like that, they can move you," Busch said. "They have control on your car. And [Montoya] was too close to my side and it started turning me sideways down the straightaway without even touching me, just like I did to Denny [Hamlin in Thursday's practice].

"When you have no grip on these tires -- I was two laps away from pitting on old tires -- the thing just started rear-steering on me down the straightaway and I had no control over it. I didn't turn across the nose of the No. 42. Why would I do that? Why would I wreck myself leading the race, the fastest car?"

Jeff Gordon, who was one of the few drivers able to emerge from the big wreck without incident, summed things up.

"I'll be honest with you," Gordon said. "I'm starting to get used to the fact that every race we go to is basically bumper cars at 190 miles an hour.

"... But, you know, when it comes down to the end, you pretty much know that it's not going to end like that, that you're going to have cautions and double-file restarts, and it's just hold on tight."