Smith was in second and trailed Stewart for the final three laps around Talladega, and the rookie made one desperate attempt to grab his first career victory by ducking inside of the two-time champion to attempt a pass.
Stewart blocked, Smith dove below the yellow out-of-bounds line at the bottom of the track to make the pass, and beat Stewart to the finish line. NASCAR reviewed the move -- a driver is allowed to make the pass if officials believe he was forced under the line -- and declared it illegal.
Smith thought he was within the rules on the pass, and went with Dale Earnhardt Inc. president Max Siegel to defend himself to NASCAR.
"I knew I was only going to get one shot at him," Smith said. "I knew where I was going to make my move. I don't know. I was always told that the rule is if you get forced down there, then you are the winner of the race and on the last lap, anything goes. That's what I was going with.
"I got forced down there, man, I had a nose inside of him and I could have piled up the whole field."
The ruling gave Stewart his first win of the season and snapped a 43-race winless streak dating to Watkins Glen last year. It also was his first career Cup win at Talladega, which has taunted him for 10 years as he finished second a maddening six times.
It looked as if he'd again come up short in his final race at Talladega with Joe Gibbs Racing, especially after he was caught in a Friday accident when Dale Earnhardt Jr. blew a tire. Crew chief Greg Zipadelli decided to fix the damaged car instead of moving to the backup, and the No. 20 crew worked late Friday night making the repairs.
Then a poor qualifying effort on Saturday -- Stewart started 34th -- made some wonder if the team had made the right decision in sticking with the damaged car.
Stewart proved everyone wrong on Sunday with flawless strategy that helped him avoid a late 12-car accident and execute a perfect restart when Smith and two of his Dale Earnhardt Inc. teammates were lurking behind him on the final sprint to the finish.
"I knew with three DEI cars behind me, it was going to be tough to hold on," Stewart said.
Stewart got the jump, but smartly made sure he didn't pull too far out and give the DEI contingent the opportunity to gang up and blow past him. Then he blocked Smith the rest of the way, only letting up when Smith went below the yellow line.
There was concern in his voice as he questioned whether Smith would be awarded the win, but he quickly started the celebration when his spotter gave the "20 is the winner" declaration.
"Man, it's one thing to get back to Victory Lane -- but to do it at Talladega -- this is one of four places I haven't won a Cup race, and talk about one to win," Stewart said. "I wanted to win here for so long."
Paul Menard, who said earlier this week he'll leave DEI at the end of the season, was a career-high second and was followed by rookie David Ragan and Chase drivers Jeff Burton and Clint Bowyer.
Bobby Labonte was sixth, followed by Scott Riggs, Robby Gordon, points leader Jimmie Johnson and Elliott Sadler.
Smith was dropped all the way to 18th.
The race had a NASCAR-record 31 lead changes, several tire failures and lived up to its reputation as the "wild card" of the 10 Chase events. Because of its white-knuckle racing conditions, Talladega is the one Chase race every driver fears will ruin his title hopes.
It most certainly did for Denny Hamlin, who was taken to a Birmingham hospital after his tire exploded while he was leading and his car slammed into the outside wall. He finished 39th and dropped to last in the Chase field.
And it may very well have sunk the Roush Fenway Racing trio of Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth, who were at the front of a 12-car accident with 16 laps to go. It started when Edwards tried to give Biffle a shove to the front, but the bump caused Biffle to spin into Kenseth as all three Roush Fenway Racing cars crashed.
The carnage spread to Chase drivers Earnhardt, Kevin Harvick, and Kyle Busch, but Johnson deftly maneuvered through the wreckage and pushed his lead in the standings to 72 points over Edwards. Biffle is in third, 77, out and Stewart jumped four spots with the victory to seventh.
"Hopefully this will give us a little momentum over the last few races and get us into the top five where we belong," Zipadelli said.
Edwards immediately accepted responsibility for the accident that sunk several Chase drivers.
"I was just pushing Greg as hard as I could. This is my fault, I apologize to everyone caught up in the wreck," Edwards said. "It's my fault. I feel bad I took my teammates out. I know Matt's mad, and I'm sure Greg is mad. I always worry about the idiots when I come here and today it was me."
Although most everyone agreed Edwards was at fault, the drivers seemed resigned to the Talladega conditions playing a role.
"Same old Talladega," said Biffle, winner of the first two Chase races. "This will hurt us in the points, but we've got six more. We knew this one was the wild card ... you just can't expect anything out of Talladega."
Harvick concurred.
"He made a mistake and tore up most of the field," Harvick said. "It's Talladega, you have a 50-50 opportunity to come here and miss the wreck and today we got in it."
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