The problems just keep piling for Stewart.

During Saturday night’s race at Daytona International Speedway Stewartbegan to feel ill and called to former teammate J.J. Yeley for assistance.

The illness had been on him all weekend. Trying to put the weakness, upset stomach and headaches in the back of his head he began to race any way.  But on lap 72 Stewart got out of his car and made way to his pit stall, and eventually the infield care center. Stewart, who had raced as high as third, cleared the seat for Yeley to take command.

Yeley, who was a teammate to Stewart for three years before going to drive for Hall of Fame Racing this year, got caught up in a couple late race accidents and placed a 20th place finish.

"We just got shuffled at the end," crew chief Greg Zipadelli said. "It's kind of been like our year. I don't know what to say. I know we had a lot better race car than what we finished tonight. We just don't seem to doanything right to turn it around."

There seems to be no dodging it for Stewart and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team. Saturday’s happenings were just another to the list of wrecks, blown tires, broken parts and even weather. Stewart has never seen bad luck like this in his entire career. His winless streak has now increased to 31 races, a career worst.

"I'm scared to get in cars, planes, everything," Stewart said. "I'm scared to walk, open doors without looking before I walk through - it's the oddest year I think I've ever seen. I've never seen this team and even in my career - I've never seen us have a string of bad luck like this.

"It comes in waves. We've had short periods of bad luck, but we've never had bad luck like we've had this year."

Despite the misfortunes Stewart can’t deny that given the situation, they could be in a deeper whole.

"It could be a lot worse. There's guys that have had a lot worse seasons than we've had, but this is a terrible year for us and our team," Stewart said. "I think that is a compliment to how good of success this team and this organization has had. I don't know how long it's going to last - hopefully it's not much longer, I'm afraid I'm going to be bald by the time it's done.

"It just reminds you of the stretches that you've had that everything goes right. It reminds you of how hard those are to have. And when you do get a string like that how much to appreciate it versus days that you think you should've won and you ran and being frustrated about it. It's like, 'Man, I'll take a third some of these days right now.' I think it helps put itin perspective even though it's frustrating.”