Stewart: Wallace deal was an accident.

Tony Stewart was only five laps into Sunday's 250-lap Auto Club 500 at California Speedway when his race began to unravel - but he insists that what followed with Rusty Wallace was no more than a racing incident - contrary to the views of his peers.

While racing Wallace for a spot in the top-ten, the two got together exiting turn two, with the right front fender of Stewart's #20 Chevrolet tipping Wallace's #2 Dodge into the outside wall. Following a trip to the garage area to repair damage from a later accident that involved Kurt Busch, Wallace was highly critical of his 'assailant', and promised to have a mano-a-mano 'chat' with the 2002 Winston Cup champion.

"I don't know if he didn't see me or what, but he just drove right through the side of my car and stuck it in the fence," Wallace fumed, "I was right up against the wall and he drove right through it. It tore me all to heck."

Stewart, naturally, viewed the incident differently, claiming that there was nothing deliberate or pre-meditated about it.

"The deal was an accident," he stressed, "I don't know if he tucked up against the side to get a pull in the draft or what, but I got real loose all of a sudden, for no reason. I got into him and then pulled off as soon as I could. I didn't stay on him, I tugged on the wheel. I could've pinned him against the fence, and I didn't do that.

"We came off of two and got together, and that put him in the wall - but the corner before that, he drove right down into the left side of us like we weren't even there, so I don't know why he's pointing the finger at somebody else. I got underneath him and I got loose coming up off of two. I didn't try to get into him, but in the corner before that he's the one that drove into us."

According to the following Jimmie Johnson, the incident looked like two hard-nosed racers giving as good as they got.

"You've got a battle of two very strong-minded and competitive guys, so it's not going to be pretty either way," he explained post-race, "Being behind it, I saw that those guys were racing really hard - but nobody was doing anything wrong. The problem was that they were racing so hard so early, they were so close it sucked the air off of the back of the #20 and took the #2 into the fence.

"I had a front row seat for it, [and] I could see that something was going to take place. It was just a matter of time because they were running into one another down the straight-away and not leaving each other a lot of room."

The damage to both cars was minimal but, at the two-mile California oval, minimal damage makes a big difference to a car's aerodynamics. For Stewart, that meant a Chevrolet that had been incredibly loose was now incredibly tight - and worse was to come for, as crew chief Greg Zipadelli and spotter Mark Robertson discussed the damage, Stewart made contact with the faster car of eventual race winner Jeff Gordon.

"My spotter and my crew chief were talking about the damage on the car but, during that, no-one let me know that the #24 car was even there," Stewart claimed, "It startled me because I didn't even see him coming. I wasn't trying to hold anybody up, because I let everybody else go who was faster than me at that point. I obviously wasn't trying to hold Jeff up either."

Gordon was a little more tolerant towards Stewart than Wallace had been.

"I didn't know what the heck happened," the multiple champion said at the post-race press conference, "I was on the outside in the middle of turns one and two and we were just coming off there side-by-side. I thought he didn't see me or his spotter didn't tell him I was there. I don't know what happened [but] that's my only guess because I was just going by on the outside and got squeezed into the wall."

While Gordon recovered sufficiently to take his second win in as many weeks, the contact left another battle scar on the #20 machine, but a series of pit stops while under caution ensured that it was still in shape to run and, after a spell moving up and down the order as strategy and overtaking played out, Stewart finally claimed 16th place.

The problem, however, is almost certainly more deep-seated than just a skirmish in California, with Stewart already having had an official talking to from NASCAR following on-track incidents in earlier races this season.

Contact with Andy Hillenburg and Kasey Kahne at Darlington was followed by a hit on Scott Wimmer during a caution at Bristol, and then the #20 was guilty of tipping Kurt Busch around to cause the biggest wreck of the day at Talladega. Even after racing had ended, Stewart's run of incidents did not cease, as he inexplicably turned across the track after taking the chequered flag last time out - and was T-boned by Terry Labonte. Stewart claimed that his action was to avoid all the drinks cans being thrown on the track in 'protest' at Gordon's win....

Ironically, Wallace was among those who stood up for the under-fire driver ahead of the Fontana race, but that appears to have changed following Sunday's run-in. Not that Stewart is too bothered, however.

"It's easy to point fingers at a guy when he's down right now - I'll just take it and go on," he insisted, "But if he wants to point fingers then he can keep pointing fingers. I used to have a lot of respect for him too. He wants to talk about respect - well, he had the opportunity to show me respect at Bristol and he didn't do it. So, I don't know what he's complaining about.

"He wants to talk about what I did to him at Bristol. Well, I remember a day when drivers were a little more cordial than they are today, and that when a faster driver came up, guys like Mark Martin - guys who respect everybody - would let them go and then work on their car and come back and get them later on in the race. But Rusty's not that way. He's out for Rusty, [and] he's not going to move over for anybody. It's all about Rusty right now...."

This one could run and run.....