Auto Racing | Tony Stewart bumps his way to win

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Tony Stewart led lap after lap around Daytona International Speedway, using a flawless pit-road performance to inch closer to his second win as owner of his race team.

Then Kyle Busch slid outside in a last-lap bid to snatch the victory away from his former teammate.

The frantic 2.5-mile chase Saturday night led to a violent wreck that sent Busch sailing into the wall while Stewart skirted by for a somber victory.

Stewart celebrated Saturday night with a bit of heartache.

Busch left the speedway with a definite headache.

Just another wild restrictor-plate finish for NASCAR, which is still smarting from April's frightening crash at Talladega Superspeedway, where Carl Edwards went airborne into the fence on the final lap in a similar last-lap crash.

"That's not the way I wanted to do it," said Stewart, who won the summer Daytona race for the third time in five years.

Busch passed Stewart right before the final lap to take the lead, but Stewart chased him down and calculated his next move. He closed in on Busch's bumper, and slight contact sent Busch drifting up the track.

Busch slid back down to maintain his lead, then tried to slide in front of Stewart to block Stewart's next move. The cars were too close together and Stewart hooked Busch's right corner to send Busch sailing into the wall.

It triggered a multiple crash behind them, but Stewart sailed through for his second points win of the season.

"I went where I had to go, and he went where he had to go," Stewart said. "It still doesn't mean you like it. That's not the way to win these things. If I did something wrong, I'm sorry."

It was a horrendous wreck for Busch, who climbed from his car apparently unscathed but had to be forced by four NASCAR officials into a waiting safety vehicle. He finished 14th and refused to comment after the race.

Jimmie Johnson was second, followed by Denny Hamlin, Busch's teammate. Edwards was fourth, and Kurt Busch finished fifth.

Enumclaw's Kasey Kahne was 15th, and Greg Biffle of Vancouver, Wash., 18th in the 43-car field.

Notes

• A week after spinning out at Richmond and losing the IndyCar Series points lead, Ryan Briscoe won his second straight pole at Watkins Glen International. He turned a lap of 1 minute, 28.5970 seconds around the 11-curve, 3.4-mile road course in the Firestone Fast Six Shootout.

• Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone faced criticism from politicians and Jewish groups after being quoted as saying that Adolf Hitler "got things done."

In an interview with London's The Times newspaper, Ecclestone expressed a preference for "strong leaders," and was quoted as saying that democracy "hasn't done a lot of good for many countries — including this one."

"In a lot of ways, terrible to say this I suppose, but apart from the fact that Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not, he was in the way that he could command a lot of people, able to get things done," Ecclestone was quoted as saying.

Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard told The Times that Eccelstone was "either an idiot or morally repulsive." Labour Party lawmaker Denis MacShane told the newspaper that the remarks revealed "a complete lack of judgment."