KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Add a new title to Tony Stewart's mantle, and not just that of winner of Sunday's Price Chopper 400 at Kansas Speedway.

Stewart has been called many things this season. He is driver of the No. 14 Chevrolet in the Sprint Cup Series, and owner of the Stewart-Haas Racing organization that fields it. Sunday marked the fourth time this season he has been labeled a Cup race winner.

Fellow driver Kyle Busch no doubt had some choice words to describe him when Stewart sent Busch spinning (and rightly so) at Daytona in July.

Stewart owns other race teams and one of the best dirt tracks in America in Eldora Speedway, as well as a grand total of something like 15 corporations that house his various businesses and enterprises.

So maybe he already has been called this on one level or another through the years -- but after Sunday, he has earned the new title, at least in this space, at this moment, of Mr. Chairman.

Gordon's point

For the first 26 weeks this season, Stewart ruled over his chosen sport like another entertainer with the same nickname, Frank Sinatra, once commanded all the stages he chose to grace and all the stooges who dared to question any of his motives or methods. Stewart grabbed the points lead halfway through the regular season and held it through last month's regular-season finale at Richmond, when the 12 seeds for the 2009 Chase for the Sprint Cup were set.

But after finishing 14th in the first race in the Chase at New Hampshire, suddenly he dropped all the way to sixth. He had to fight hard to earn a ninth-place finish the following week at Dover, and even that moved him up only one spot.

It's not like he's the first guy to have something like this -- or much worse -- happen. It was only last year when Kyle Busch entered the Chase as the No. 1 seed, winner of eight races, and promptly blew up early and often in the final 10 events, eventually finishing 10th in points in a season he earlier had dominated.

Jeff Gordon took note of all that Sunday when talking about Stewart and how nine of the top 10 finishers at Kansas were fellow Chasers.

"I think that's why they made the Chase [in 2004]," Gordon said. "Right now [under the old non-Chase points system], Tony would be pretty much on cruise control with the championship. So they made the Chase to have a playoff-type system, and all year it's been anybody that can win races and come on strong. And now that's what we've got."

Stewart, however, is not the type of driver or person who likes to look too far ahead, nor does he like to gaze too far into the past. So when the attempt was made by yours truly to bring up Gordon's point Sunday, Mr. Chairman blanched and didn't have any interest whatsoever in playing the what-if game.

Post-race banter

The conversation in the post-race Kansas Speedway media interview room went, in part, something like this ...

Yours truly: "Jeff Gordon was in here and mentioned that ...

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Tony Stewart admits he is a big fan of Jeff Gordon.

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Mr. Chairman (interrupting): "He came in here? Jeff Gordon came in here? Wow."

Yours truly: "I know you're amazed."

Mr. Chairman: "That's awesome. I never would have thought Jeff Gordon would have come in here. Go ahead. I'll try to contain myself."

(Editor's Note: He couldn't.)

Yours truly: "Gordon said if this was the old system, you'd be running away with it ...

Mr. Chairman (who would have banged a gavel if he had one and probably would even have shouted, "You, sir, are held in contempt): "Yeah, but it's not the old system, so why are we talking about the old system? In case you didn't know, we haven't used that system for five years now. Who cares?"

And so on and so forth.

Stewart went on to later add: "The thing is we had the whole time that we were in the [points] lead to think about that, but we didn't think about it. All we did was worry about the significance of just making sure you're in the top 12 when it comes time for Richmond. It doesn't matter whether you're leading; it doesn't matter how many you're leading by; it doesn't matter if you only make the Chase by one point and you're 2,000 points behind the leader. And that's the mind-set that we all start [the season-opening race at] Daytona with, and you know it.

"It's not a situation where anybody that's leading the points is going to be [frustrated or disappointed when the points are reset at the start of the Chase]. They shouldn't be disappointed because that's what the system is. We understand what it is. There's nothing wrong with it. The system is a cool system."

Stewart went on the say that he was so thrilled to be answering questions about this subject from the same chair as Jeff Gordon that he might just take the chair home with him to have Gordon sign it.

A little while later after the interview session wrapped, he did just that -- wheeling it out in front of him as he left the media center. The point that never really was made, but perhaps didn't need to be hammered home, was that after Sunday's win he's still right there in contention for this championship, now only 67 points behind Mark Martin, who was installed in the lead by virtue of having more race wins when the Chase began.

And who knows? Maybe Mr. Chairman will get cruise control installed on his new piece of furniture and sit in it all the way to his third championship, no matter what the system.

Maybe, just maybe, despite all the talk about Martin and Jimmie Johnson who sit ahead of him now but are a little closer in the standings, a determined Mr. Chairman served notice Sunday that this is still his championship to lose -- or win.

That's the way the Chairman rolls.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer.

Joe Menzer is the author of "The Great American Gamble: How the 1979 Daytona 500 Gave Birth to a NASCAR Nation." Click here to purchase.

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