She was stopped midway by three-time champion and Stewart-Haas Racing team co-owner Tony Stewart, who gave her a quick post-race lecture about on-track retaliation.

Emotion overcame Patrick at Lap 206 of the 400-mile race when Earnhardt — who had been battling brake problems all night — ran into the back of her No. 10 Chevrolet. Patrick retaliated by shoving into the No. 88 car on pit road. Earnhardt reciprocated the gesture immediately by cutting her off.
 
"I didn’t have any brakes," Earnhardt told his team on the radio after the incident. "I don’t even know why we’re out here."
 
This didn’t appease Patrick, who colorfully expressed her fury on her own radio.
 
"(Expletive) 88," Patrick said to her team. "Did he (expletive) hit me? Go (expletive) yourself. Really?"
 
For Junior, the reasoning behind the collision came down to one simple fact: He couldn’t stop.

RELATED: See where Junior is on the Chase Grid
 
"We cooked the brakes real fast," Earnhardt said on pit road after the race after finishing 21st. "… They got worse and worse and worse and I probably shouldn’t have been racing as hard as I was when we ran into the back of Danica. But I went into that corner and just mashed the brakes to the floor, pumped it three times all the way to the floor and then ran into her.
 
"There wasn’t nothing I could do. It sucks, I don’t like running into Danica cause it gets a little too much attention. But I’m sorry for that."
 
Earnhardt recognized and understood her anger, saying it’s "hard not to (retaliate) if you’re in her shoes." Nevertheless, the No. 88 driver exasperatedly questioned Patrick’s thought process during her retaliation, as the duo hadn’t had any issues prior to the squabble.
 
"What am I supposed to say other than the truth?" Earnhardt said. "We didn’t have any brakes going into the corner … There wasn’t nothing I could do. I mean as hard as I hit her, what the hell did she think I was doing — trying to wreck her? We ain’t got no problem with her. It’s not like I was having a problem with her out there on the race track.
 
"Not like I just drew her name out of a hat. Just decided ‘She’s who I’m going to run into tonight,’ " Earnhardt said with a chuckle.

ALL ACCESS: Danica confronts Denny at Daytona
 
Despite Patrick’s hot temper and colorful language aimed at him, Earnhardt isn’t worried about the pair’s relationship.
 
"She’ll chill out," Earnhardt said. "So, it happens to all of us. I’m not too worried about it. I’ve got pretty good friends, so I think we’ll be able to talk it out."

Busch led a race-high 163 laps, scoring a maximum 48 points and moving to 35th in the standings, 87 points behind Cole Whitt in 30th. Busch must finish the first 26 races in the top 30 in order to be eligible for the Chase.

The new aero package, in Busch’s view was a benefit as he closed on Logano in a race that saw a track-record 22 green-flag passes for the lead.
 
"All the drivers were kind of striving for this," Busch said. "I felt like it was a positive thing when I was chasing Joey down. Right when I got to him, he moved up and tried to block my lane. With the old package, you’d get stalled out, and get stuck behind the guy. I just moved down and went a little bit lower and got my Camry to stick and was able to power through and get back by him.
 
"We swapped the lead back and forth a couple times. I thought it was pretty good racing. You don’t want to spend too much time racing around and putting on too good of a show for the fans to take yourself out of a win. I thought that was a really good race, at least it wasn’t a guy who checked out on the last run and you didn’t see a pass for the lead coming down the final stretch."
 
Long a proponent of lower downforce, Edwards was even more effusive in his praise of the new package.
 
"This package, we need to keep going in this direction," Edwards said. "We could race closer together — I was steering right. We were using the whole car. We just need to keep taking downforce away. It was an awesome show. Just an awesome, fun day and I’m glad Kyle got the win."

It didn’t take long for NASCAR’s new lower-downforce aero package to have a visible effect on the racing. On Lap 95, after he had trimmed Kyle Busch‘s four-second lead to a car-length, Brad Keselowski (whose winning chances were snookered by a series of snafus on pit road) tucked behind Busch’s Toyota Camry, took the air off the shorter 3.5-inch spoiler and shot into the lead.

Three laps later, Kurt Busch spun off Turn 4 when the rear of the No. 41 Chevrolet stepped out.

The new package also had an ostensible effect on brakes, putting more stress on the smaller rotors and calipers that have been in vogue with higher-downforce configurations. On Lap 136, Dale Earnhardt Jr. slapped the wall, unable to slow his car adequately in the corner.

Beyond that, the absolute dominance of the Hendrick Motorsports armada — including the Stewart-Haas Racing affiliates — was nowhere in evidence on Saturday night. Jimmie Johnson struggled and salvaged a ninth-place finish. Jeff Gordon (seventh) fell short in an ill-fated attempt to complete a career sweep of active Sprint Cup tracks.

Kevin Harvick (eighth) was good, but the reigning series champion was not up to his usual untouchable standard. Kurt Busch (10th) was fast, but not fast enough.

Overall, based on a sample size of one race, the new package seemed to shift the balance of power in the series, at least marginally, from the Chevys of Hendrick and Stewart-Haas to the Fords of Team Penske and the Toyotas of Joe Gibbs Racing.

Emblematic was a late-race restart on Lap 192. Logano got past Harvick immediately. Edwards followed in the No. 19 JGR Toyota 12 laps later, right before the race-record-tying 10th caution for Danica Patrick‘s crash in Turn 4 (after a tap from Earnhardt, whose brakes were still malfunctioning) brought the field to pit road with 58 laps left.

RELATED: Danica rips Dale Jr. after wreck

Hamlin won the race off pit road and led JGR teammates Kyle Busch and Edwards to green on Lap 213. By the time the teammates got back to the stripe, they were three-wide barreling toward Turn 1. Hamlin shot ahead into the lead, Logano surged past Busch and Edwards into second, and Keselowski grabbed fifth place from Kenseth before Kyle Larson’s cut tire caused the 11th caution on Lap 219.

Logano and Kyle Busch roared to the front moments after the subsequent restart on Lap 225, and, 23 laps later, Busch had the lead for good.

But for Gordon, close just isn’t good enough in his final Kentucky foray.

"It’s not if we don’t win that I’m going to be super disappointed," Gordon said. "I’m going to be disappointed if we finish second. To come that close, yeah, that would be a little disappointing as far as the stats go. But I would like to have a good, strong finish here and just have a shot at it."

For the No. 24 team, making it to the front will be its biggest battle. Despite Gordon’s solid finishes, he’s yet to lead a lap around the 1.5-mile track.

The zero in his "Laps Led" column puzzles the Hendrick Motorsports driver, as he has paced the field at every track for at least 182 laps, his best track being Martinsville with an impressive 3,744 laps led.

"This is just a tough race track," Gordon said. "I’m not really sure. I feel like we have always run well toward the end of the race, but maybe didn’t always start off as strong. Maybe it’s a qualifying thing, too. We just haven’t qualified up front.

"Hopefully, that changes this weekend."

Gordon’s third-place starting position, set by opening practice times due to inclement weather, could give him the leverage he needs to make a strong run to the front. And while growing pains may come with the new rules package debuting this weekend — which Gordon reserves most opinions about until he runs a little more — bumpy Kentucky already causes Gordon physical pain.

Perhaps it’s a good pain — it takes him back to the early days.

"When I think of this track, I just think of how challenging it is and how rough it is, how much my back hurts and how much I’d like to win here because we never have," Gordon said. "I love that fact that when we came here, especially the first time, the way that racing is supported in this part of the country.

"It reminded me of Indiana. I used to race in Evansville — not to far from here — I raced sprint cars, and it just didn’t surprise me how when we come here, there’s a lot of huge race fans, not just NASCAR fans, but just huge race fans, that want to see a great race and came out to support us here."

That’s just what Gordon will look to do on Sunday, as he climbs into his No. 24 for the last time at Kentucky: Give fans a great race. No matter the outcome, to Gordon’s longtime fans, he’ll always be celebrated.

"When I heard the crowd applaud on race day (at Sonoma) for driver introductions, it really hit me and stuck with me, and it was cool," Gordon said. "The cheers and the support have been overwhelming everywhere we’ve gone.

"Other than that, the only place that I think it’s really going to hit me like, ‘Wow, this is really happening,’ is (his final race) in Homestead."