DOVER, Del. -- Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick initially appeared to be the lucky ones, driving their cars away from the chaos on the backstretch and into the garage area, both making the left-hand turn into their stalls as crews awaited with equipment.

The Nos. 20 and 29 teams, stabled side-by-side, immediately went to work on their totaled machines that seemingly had identical damage: smashed-in nose, bent-up hood, broken deck lid, countless spots of interior malfunctions.

“

I take 100 percent responsibility -- it's my fault for being anywhere close to Elliott. If I'm within half a lap of him, I expect that to happen.

”

TONY STEWART

Stewart and Harvick got the brunt of a Lap 17 incident (watch video) during Sunday's Best Buy 400 at Dover International Speedway that spawned after Elliott Sadler came down on David Gilliland and bounced off the wall and back into traffic. Stewart T-boned Sadler as he sat in the middle of the concrete straightaway.

"I take 100 percent responsibility -- it's my fault for being anywhere close to Elliott [Sadler]," a frustrated Stewart said as his crew was forced to stop work when the red flag was displayed so officials could clean up the wreckage and spilt fluids. "If I'm within half a lap of him, I expect that to happen. It's my fault -- I'm the one that hit him. When I hit him it caused all the guys behind us to wreck, so it's my fault."

The crash also collected Denny Hamlin when he slammed his No. 11 Toyota into Sadler just before Harvick pinned Hamlin's car. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Scott Riggs suffered major damage, as well. Clint Bowyer, Bobby Labonte, Paul Menard, Kasey Kahne and Bill Elliott also got collected in some fashion (Lap-by-Lap).

"The wreck happened in front of us and we had actually stopped on the track because it was blocked and got hit in the rear by another car," Harvick said.

That sent him into Hamlin.

"When I heard wreck off Turn 2, I immediately was on the brakes," Hamlin said as his car was pulled into the garage on a wrecker hook just before the red flag was displayed. "It's just these cars don't stop as well as they had in the past. It's just part of the racetrack. It's tough racing early in the going."

Sadler, who would not return to the race and finished 42nd, admitted it wasn't a good situation that unfolded, but said his concentration was on passing the No. 77 of Sam Hornish Jr. and that he didn't see Gilliland's car below him.

"We made it three-wide and I think he just got into the back of me a little bit," Sadler said in reference to Gilliland. "I didn't know he was there. There were just a lot of good cars taken out of the race [Sunday]."

Sprint Cup Series

Official Standings

Pos.	+/-	Driver	Behind
1.	--	Ky. Busch	--
2.	--	J. Burton	-142
3.	--	Dale Jr.	-271
4.	+2	C. Edwards	-337
5.	+6	G. Biffle	-392
6.	+4	J. Gordon	-404
7.	+2	J. Johnson	-406
8.	-3	C. Bowyer	-417
9.	-5	D. Hamlin	-420
10.	-3	K. Harvick	-484
11.	-3	T. Stewart	-499
12.	--	K. Kahne	-526

• Standings | Race Central

The early crash set up a major shuffle in the Sprint Cup standings.

Minutes after Hamlin's car was hauled in, Earnhardt's No. 88 Chevrolet, which caught damage while trying to slow down and avoid the melee, also was dragged into the garage. He appeared to have the least amount of damage of the heavy hitters as his team pushed the car back into the stall and strategically placed its weapons of repair in the proper places for the signal to go to work.

When the 16-minute, 13-second red flag was lifted, Junior's crew orchestrated their plan and Earnhardt was pulling out of the garage and merging in with the slower cars when the green flag waved on Lap 26.

Earnhardt's ability to return to the track, albeit significantly slower than the leaders, controlled his drop in points. He finished 35th, 13 laps down. He came into the race third in the standings, trailing Busch by 139 points, and left in the same spot although falling 271 points out of the lead.

Hamlin was poised to take the biggest hit as he entered the race in fourth, 264 points behind Busch. Hamlin's damage prevented him from returning to the race and resulted in a 43rd-place finish, dropping him five positions to ninth in the standings, 420 back.

Turns out, Stewart and Harvick weren't as lucky as they initially thought. Harvick got his car, sans hood and nose, back on track at Lap 70. He finished 38th, 74 laps down. Stewart, who anticipated his car would look like a dune buggy, made it back by Lap 100 but later pulled back into the garage. He finished 41st.

Harvick came into the event seventh in points and dropped to 10th, 484 back of the lead.

"It's critical any time you fall out of the race this early," said Richard Childress, team owner for Harvick's car. "But we're going to get back out and make all the points you can. You don't give up."

Stewart agreed. He came into the race eighth in points, 349 back, and left in 11th, 499 out of first.

"Unfortunately, adversity is our motto here at Joe Gibbs Racing," Stewart said from the garage. "We'll be fine. We'll get it fixed and just go out there and ride around and be a fixture out there the rest of the day."