LOUDON, N.H. – Kyle Busch predicted a dismal day at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

What an understatement.

Busch, the Sprint Cup Series points leader, was hit intentionally by Juan Pablo Montoya during what turned out to be the final caution of Sunday’s Lenox Industrial Tools 301, relegating Busch to a 25th-place finish.

Montoya was assessed a two-lap penalty by NASCAR for rough driving and ended up with a 32nd-place finish. The two drivers had battled side-by-side drawing contact shortly before Clint Bowyer and Sam Hornish Jr. spun to bring out the caution on Lap 280.

“Honestly, I have no idea (what happened). I got a run on him with 50 laps to go and got to his outside and he kept coming up a little bit,” Busch said after the race. “I didn’t turn down into him and I barely touched his quarter-panel and got by him.

“We came to that caution flag and he thought he beat me to the flag. I was just trying to get around (Dario Franchitti) who was in front of us, touched (Montoya) on the door and he turned left and spun me out.

“I don’t know what his beef is.”

After Montoya and Busch had taken the yellow flag, Montoya turned left directly into Busch’s No. 18 Toyota. Busch spun and clipped Montoya’s car, sending both cars to pit road. Before the race could restart, it began to rain and NASCAR called the race after 284 laps.

“He hit me under caution, he hit me under green and I retaliated,” Montoya said after meeting with NASCAR officials after the race. “Did I go too far in retaliating? Yeah.

“I think they are giving me a penalty and it’s OK for what I did. The only thing I told them was that they are always saying be very careful not to do anything under caution. The only reason I did that was that I was just defending myself.”

Busch’s finish brought a difficult weekend to a close. He won last week’s race at Sonoma, Calif., but had struggled most of the weekend in practice and qualified 27th.

“We missed something all weekend. I knew it was going to be a dismal day and I was trying to make the most of it,” Busch said.

“If we had stayed out (on the last pit stop), we could have won the race, but I just didn’t feel that was the right way to win a race. I didn’t feel like we had a shot to hold off the guys that were going to be behind us.”