HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) — Montoya-Stewart took a page out of the Hamlin-Keselowski playbook.

Get hit, hit back.

Retaliate and wait for the next strike.

The final two races of the NASCAR season were more like a throwback to the good ol' boys who settled their feuds on the track.

Juan Pablo Montoya and Tony Stewart must have watched the Nationwide Series race a night earlier when Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin added another explosive edition to their long-running conflict.

"Maybe they looked at it and said, 'It's worth it,'" Hamlin said.

Montoya and Stewart became tangled in separate blatant acts of retaliation in the Sprint Cup finale Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Stewart temporarily sent Montoya to the garage; NASCAR kept Montoya parked on pit road.

It's a type of fiery attitude fans feel NASCAR could use to inject some life into a series where crowning Jimmie Johnson the champion has become a staid formality.

"I'm glad I was an inspiration," Hamlin said after he won the race. "I think everyone's got a little fight in them every now and then, especially when they get done wrong. After our performance today, it's easy to put yesterday behind me."

Hamlin-Keselowski and Montoya-Stewart were an unexpected heavyweight double-bill caused by frayed nerves and a "nothing to lose" mentality with the season down to the final laps.

Keselowski and Hamlin's on-track issues deteriorated into a war of words. Montoya and Stewart skipped out without talking to the media.

"I haven't seen all the replays and I don't know what happened first and when," Stewart crew chief Darian Grubb said. "They were racing each other pretty hard and both got frustrated."

The trouble started Sunday when Montoya tagged Stewart from behind on lap 117, something the two-time Cup champ wouldn't let slide. Stewart got his payback when he sideswiped the No. 42, slicing the right front tire of Montoya's Chevrolet and sending the car into the wall. Montoya was forced into the garage to have the car repaired.

Perhaps that's when Montoya, who enjoyed the best season of his three-year Cup career, plotted revenge.

Montoya returned to the track on lap 145 and quickly had another run-in with Stewart.