His return to Daytona might have been even more frustrating.

A few hours after needing intravenous fluids following a 70-minute stint in stifling heat while making his Grand-Am Series debut, Busch was in his Cup car and running in the lead pack. He started eighth, worked his way up to second in the first 40 laps and then spent most of the 160-lap event waiting to make his move.

He did it shortly after a restart with four laps to go, hooking up with teammate Hamlin and sneaking by Stewart for the lead. All Busch had to do from there was hold off Stewart for 2½ miles on the superspeedway.

Easier said than done, especially with those horsepower-sapping carburetor plates. They slow speeds at NASCAR's fastest tracks and cause cars to run in tight packs, where one small wiggle can trigger a multicar accident.

Stewart got some help from Johnson, chased down Busch and started calculating his next move. Stewart inched toward Busch's bumper, getting close enough to send Busch drifting up the track.

Busch turned back left to maintain his lead, then tried to slide in front of Stewart to block him. It was one move too many. As Busch crossed in front of Stewart's bumper, the cars made enough contact to turn Busch around and send him veering out of control.

His car lifted off the ground as it slammed into the wall. Kasey Kahne, Jeff Burton, Robby Gordon and AJ Allmendinger also got caught up in the wreck.

It was the latest wild finish at a restrictor-plate race. Remember Talladega in April? Edwards sure does. That's where his car went airborne into the fence in a similar last-lap crash.

Busch's brush wasn't nearly as harrowing, but it left Stewart in a much less celebratory mood than his first win as a driver/owner at Stewart-Haas Racing.

"Even if it's 100 percent his fault, I still won't feel good about it," Stewart said. "I think racers hold the integrity of the sport in mind, and it was a good race. The outcome may go your way, but it doesn't mean that you have to like how it happened."

Busch surely didn't.

It continued his string of poor finishes. He's been outside the top 10 five times in the last six races and 10 times in the last 13 events — well below the 24-year-old's lofty expectations that came following his eight wins last year.

And Daytona has been pretty much a disaster for him.

"That's part of this," Addington said. "This is a product of restrictor-plate racing with these cars. What are you going to say? Everybody on this race team worked their tails off and we had a good race car. I can't say anything. I'm not pointing any fingers at Tony. He was trying to win the race, Kyle was trying to block him for the win and got turned around."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.