Being on the outside looking in at the Chase for the Nextel Cup appears to be giving defending series champion Tony Stewart some real issues.

Stewart, who did not qualify for this year’s season-ending, 10-race Chase, has admitted to feeling a little skittish when he tries to race against one of the 10 drivers who are competing for the championship. It all came to a head in the Dover 400 at Dover International Speedway last Sunday, when Stewart lost control of his Chevrolet in between the third and fourth turns on the 12th lap and slid up the banking, collecting Kasey Kahne’s Dodge.

Kahne is one of the 10 drivers racing for the championship. His title hopes took a serious hit as he finished 38th and dropped to ninth in points, 182 points behind leader Jeff Burton, with eight races remaining in the season. Stewart was left rattled after potentially ruining Kahne’s championship hopes.

“Wrecking is one thing, but when you take out somebody that’s in the Chase, you’ve screwed up a whole team’s year by one race,” Stewart said. “And of all people, it’s one of my good friends [Kahne]. “This Chase thing needs a lot of work, and it’s not a matter of how many cars make the Chase. It goes a lot deeper than that.”

Stewart then went on to lambaste the way NASCAR’s Chase for the Nextel Cup is structured — the exact same points configuration that he used to win his second championship last season. Following the first race of the Chase at New Hampshire two weeks ago, Stewart said that NASCAR should award separate points for Chase contenders and non-Chase contenders. That way, if an incident happened on the race track with a title contender, it would not have such a devastating impact.

Then, at Dover, Stewart turned up the volume on the Chase for the Nextel Cup, which is in its third year of existence. “I don’t think this Chase thing was thought out well enough,” Stewart said. “Brian [France, NASCAR chairman] is a smart guy. We’ll see if he can make some adjustments to make it right for these guys. “But you look at what’s going on right now. The guys that have an opportunity to win the Chase are guys that just don’t have bad luck. That’s all there is to it. It’s not about anything else.”

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