"I hate to see a crash like that and I don't like winning them this way but I don't think I did anything wrong there," Stewart said after winning at Daytona in July for the third time in his career. "I got beside him before he came up and you know, he did what he had to do. He had to protect his line and we did the best we could do there."

Johnson crossed the finish line second behind Stewart after a solid race despite not leading any laps. On the final lap he pushed Stewart to allow him a chance to regain the lead, something that would prove vital to the outcome of the race.

"I was real content riding in fourth," said Johnson. "I had a feeling something would take place coming to the finish and I might be able to improve my position. Everybody was content to stay in line, and you're just waiting for the second-place car to make a move on the leader, and those guys started racing and passing each other, and an opportunity came along and I was in the right lane, and off I went."

Hamlin had probably the second best car of the day, leading 63 laps out of the scheduled 160. However he lost his teammate's draft in the final lap and had to be happy with a third place finish.

"I wanted one of our cars to win so I decided to go with the 18 [Busch] right there to get around the 14 [Stewart]," Hamlin said.

"It was a move to help a teammate and instead of us going for a win I felt like our best shot was for us to push Kyle and we got him in the lead. It's just that it took us out of the position and let the 48 [Johnson] get around us. But overall it was a good day for our team."

Carl Edwards finished fourth, while Kurt Busch made a great recovery from an incident with David Ragan with 39 laps to go. After making contact with the Roush Fenway driver his car required some bodywork repairs at the front but he was able to charge back to get his third top-ten in as many restrictor-plate races this season.

Marcos Ambrose impressed with sixth in the end, followed by Brian Vickers while Juan Pablo Montoya survived an incident, a pit-road penalty, being twice a lap down and a mistake on his final pit stop, to score a hard fought ninth place behind Matt Kenseth, which allows him to move one place up to 11th in the driver standings.

Jamie McMurray was 10th, making it three Roush Fenway cars in the top-10, while Ragan finished 13th in the end.

Besides the last-lap incident, the other 'Big One' of the night came on lap 77 after David Stremme got spun on the backstretch by Kahne.

At least eight cars were involved in the incident including Gordon, who picked up some damage to the right-front corner of his car and also Dale Earnhardt Jr who wouldn't finish the race. His teammate Mark Martin didn't finish either after crashing on lap 13 following contact with Kenseth out of Turn 2.

The veteran is now outside of the top-12 in the driver standings, which continue to be led by Stewart, who added another 10-point bonus towards his Chase seeding with his victory.

RESULTS:




Pos  Driver              Make        Laps
 1.  Tony Stewart        Chevrolet   160
 2.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet   160
 3.  Denny Hamlin        Toyota      160
 4.  Carl Edwards        Ford        160
 5.  Kurt Busch          Dodge       160
 6.  Marcos Ambrose      Toyota      160
 7.  Brian Vickers       Toyota      160
 8.  Matt Kenseth        Ford        160
 9.  Juan Montoya        Chevrolet   160
10.  Elliott Sadler      Dodge       160
11.  Jamie McMurray      Ford        160
12.  Regan Smith         Chevrolet   160
13.  David Ragan         Ford        160
14.  Kyle Busch          Toyota      160
15.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge       160
16.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet   160
17.  AJ Allmendinger     Dodge       160
18.  Greg Biffle         Ford        160
19.  Joey Logano         Toyota      160
20.  Ryan Newman         Chevrolet   160
21.  Bobby Labonte       Ford        160
22.  Robby Gordon        Toyota      160
23.  Paul Menard         Ford        160
24.  Brad Keselowski     Chevrolet   160
25.  Martin Truex Jr     Chevrolet   160
26.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet   160
27.  John Andretti       Chevrolet   160
28.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet   160
29.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet   159
30.  Tony Raines         Dodge       158
31.  Scott Speed         Toyota      152
32.  Sam Hornish Jr      Dodge       152
33.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge       146
34.  Casey Mears         Chevrolet   144
35.  David Stremme       Dodge       129
36.  David Reutimann     Toyota      127
37.  Michael Waltrip     Toyota      124
38.  Mark Martin         Chevrolet    79
39.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Chevrolet    76
40.  David Gilliland     Chevrolet    76
41.  Joe Nemechek        Toyota       25
42.  Patrick Carpentier  Toyota       18
43.  Dave Blaney         Toyota       2