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. (Continued)