Daytona Beach, FL -- (Sports Network) - Tony Stewart set off his own fireworks on the Fourth of July at Daytona International Speedway after he tangled with Kyle Busch on the final lap to take the Coke Zero 400.

Busch passed Stewart for the lead with less than two laps to go, but Stewart caught his former Joe Gibbs Racing teammate as they came out of the final turn on the last lap.

As Stewart attempted to make a pass on the outside, Busch tried to block him, but his rear bumper hit Stewart's front end, as Busch spun around and slammed hard into the wall.

"I don't know if I was real proud of that, but I don't know what else I could have done there," Stewart said. "I went where I had to go, and he went where he had to go. You hate seeing a guy who's been up front all day, especially a guy who helped me the whole race, get wrecked like that. I don't like winning them like that."

Several other cars crashed in reaction to the incident, while Stewart crossed the finish line for his second victory of the season and the 35th of his Sprint Cup Series career. His first win as driver and owner of Stewart-Haas Racing came last month at Pocono. Stewart became the first driver/owner to win multiple races in a season since Ricky Rudd in 1997.

Busch climbed out of his battered Toyota with no injuries, but had to be forced by NASCAR officials into the safety vehicle for a ride into the track's infield care center. He ended up finishing 14th.

"You feel bad because you want him to have a good day too, but we weren't going to give it to him," Stewart added.

Busch refused to comment on the incident after the race.

Jimmie Johnson survived the last-lap melee to finish second.

"I thought we had one more lap, so I was hopeful the caution flag came out before we crossed the start/finish line," Johnson said.

Denny Hamlin, also a former teammate of Stewart's, came in third, followed by Carl Edwards and Kurt Busch.

Marcos Ambrose, Brian Vickers, Matt Kenseth, who won the Daytona 500 in February, Juan Pablo Montoya and Elliott Sadler completed the top-10.

Stewart, now a three-time winner of the 400-mile race at Daytona, extended his lead to 180 points over Jeff Gordon, who finished 28th. Stewart started on the pole and led an event-high 86 laps. His first two victories in this race came in 2005-06.

The last-lap crash was the second of two major incidents at Daytona. Just before the half-way point, a 13-car crash occurred along the backstretch when David Stremme got turned into the wall and Kasey Kahne hit him from behind. David Reutimann also got turned sideways, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. wrecking into him.

"A couple of guys got together and I was just trying to stay high," said Earnhardt Jr., who finished 39th. "(Reutimann) was crossed up, and then I got into him pretty hard."

Reutimann later blew a right-front tire and smacked the wall, as he ended up with a 36th-place finish.