updated 9:34 a.m. ET Feb. 20, 2006

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Forgive Matt Kenseth if he rolls his eyes the next time Tony Stewart delivers a safety lecture.

An aggressive move by Stewart sent Kenseth sliding through the infield grass and back up the banking, ending his contending run in Sunday’s Daytona 500.

The move earned Stewart an aggressive-driving penalty from NASCAR officials and might cost him some of the credibility he built up during the run-up to the race.

“Tony went out and said all that stuff earlier in the week,” Kenseth said. “If he’s worried about people’s lives and everything, and then he’s going to wreck you on purpose at 190 (mph), I wasn’t too happy with that.”

After being praised for taking a stand on safety issues early in the week, Stewart was back to his aggressive old self Sunday, salvaging a fifth-place finish from an afternoon’s worth of controversy.

He tangled with contenders Kenseth, Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch, and delivered defiant words afterward.

“He’s just screaming about it like he always does,” Stewart said of Kenseth. “Never mind the fact that he had me sideways in Turn 2. It’s just amazing. Guys want to race a certain way, then when something happens to them, they’re the first ones to point fingers somewhere else.”

Stewart boasted that Kenseth might have started Sunday’s tussle, but he finished it.

And he wasn’t done scrapping. With seven laps to go, Kyle Busch swerved toward Stewart on the backstretch. Busch’s move sent Stewart plunging below the yellow out-of-bounds line at the bottom of the track, but officials decided Busch was at fault and called a penalty.

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“He’s the one guy who’s probably going to hurt somebody out here,” Stewart said of Busch. “He’s all over the place. He’s what we like to call a bird with no feathers. He just doesn’t know where he’s going. He had a fast car. He just needs to learn how to drive the thing. He’s got talent. That’s why he got here in the first place.”

Busch wouldn’t take the blame.

“I ran him below the yellow line, I guess, but I moved back up and gave him room,” Busch said.

There wasn’t enough room for Stewart and Gordon in the same spot of the racetrack on lap 47, when Stewart was shuffled out of the race lead and tapped Gordon’s car while trying to get back in line.

Both cars brushed the wall, and Gordon made an impressive save to keep his car from spinning out.

“I am going to take part blame for that,” Gordon said. “I think Tony should take part of it as well. ... I think it could have been avoided by both of us. It was an unfortunate incident that hurt us both a lot.”

Despite all the drama, Stewart still had an outside chance at the victory. He was ninth when the race restarted for a two-lap overtime period and climbed to fifth at the end.

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Heading into the race, Stewart’s safety crusade had been the most prominent story line of Daytona Speedweeks.

After witnessing drivers’ aggressive bump-drafting techniques in an exhibition race last Sunday, he took his complaints to reporters and NASCAR officials.

In response, officials announced that they would police aggressive driving more closely.

Stewart’s stand made him the toast of the garage area, drawing praise from other drivers and the media for standing up for safety. Little did he know he would be the new policy’s most prominent victim.

Stewart’s crew chief, Greg Zipadelli, didn’t dispute the call.

“That’s what they saw, and we took our lumps, came in and went back out,” Zipadelli said. “I mean, it is what it is. They warned us, they did it to other people, so it’s not a big deal. As long as they stay consistent and keep doing it that way, I’m all right with it.”

Stewart vented by flipping his rotating in-car camera forward so television viewers couldn’t see him.

Kenseth clearly was furious with Stewart after the accident, and the normally low-key driver’s anger earned him a penalty of his own.

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Despite warnings from NASCAR officials to both drivers to calm down, Kenseth zoomed around Stewart and swerved toward him after a pit stop.

It was unclear whether Kenseth’s car actually made contact with Stewart’s — Kenseth radioed his crew claiming he didn’t hit Stewart — but the move was enough for NASCAR to call a penalty on Kenseth.

Kenseth ignored the punishment for several laps, arguing the call with his crew over the radio, but eventually made an extra pass through pit road to complete the penalty. He finished 15th.

Stewart wasn’t penalized for the earlier run-in that probably cost Gordon a shot at back-to-back victories. Gordon was caught in another wreck near the end of the race and finished 26th.

“The thing with Jeff, I don’t think it was his fault,” Stewart said. “I think he just got a spot up there where it was wet and he pushed, got into me and we both pushed into the wall. I wasn’t complaining about that by any means. It was a wild day for sure.”

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