Tony Stewart was ready to put an exclamation point on what had been a dominant weekend at Talladega by winning Sunday's Aaron's 499 Sprint Cup Series race, but ended up having his dreams of a weekend double dashed.

The #20 Home Depot Toyota started on the outside of row one and led seven times for a race-high 61 laps, even though a cut right-front tyre sent it scraping along the outside wall in turns one and two on lap 143. Stewart showed how good the orange machine was by rallying from 31st to again challenge for the win, but his run came undone when the Joe Gibbs racing entry became involved in a multi-car accident on lap 174, ending its race 14 laps short of the scheduled 188-lap distance.

“I just went to the second lane there – and it was there for a short amount of time – and I thought we were alright, but the closer we got to turn one, the smaller that hole got,” Stewart said, having finished 38th after his second DNF of the season.

“I was as close to Bobby [Labonte] as I could get and the hole closed up. It's just what happens late in these races. If it was my fault, I'm sorry, but, looking at the video, I don't feel like I did anything wrong really.”

Had Stewart been able to avoid the six-car melee, he might have had the chance to cap a race weekend that began in victory lane with a pole and victory in the Nationwide Series race on Saturday.

As Stewart's crew tore away the car's crumpled sheet metal and figured out a way to roll the battered machine onto the transporter for its trip back to JGR headquarters, the two-time Cup Series champion reflected on what had been an otherwise impressive performance.

"We had a great day going," Stewart said, "We were really in good shape until I had the right-front go down - and even then I got us in the back. Late in the race, where there's 15 laps to go, you can't just sit there. You've got to go do what you can to get those spots back."

Team-mate and racewinner Kyle Busch apparently agreed with Stewart, for he came from a lap down to win the race.

"I didn't think [my car] was as good as the #20 was today," race winner and team-mate Kyle Busch said of Stewart's machine, "but this Toyota had enough horsepower in it to power us to the win."