CONCORD, N.C. - Slumped over and scowling, Tony Stewart made no effort to mask his disgust after finishing a race in which he feared for his safety.

He wasn’t alone.

Kevin Harvick called on NASCAR to halt Saturday night’s race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway after a rash of exploding tires turned the event into a dangerous debacle.

“This is the biggest joke in racing I’ve ever seen,” said Harvick, who crashed hard after blowing tires in both the Nextel Cup race and Friday night’s Busch Series event.

“It’s just terrible. Everybody is just out there, knowing that at any moment the tires are going to pop. It’s pretty disgusting and pretty embarrassing for our sport.”

Asked what NASCAR could do to fix the problem, Harvick didn’t hold back: “Throw the checkered flag and get the hell out of here,” he said. “That’s the best thing they can do.”

A smooth, sleek surface at Lowe’s — the result of track president Humpy Wheeler twice using a grinding process on the asphalt as a temporary fix until he could repave it — created high speeds Saturday night that proved too fast for the tires Goodyear provided.

In all, the race was marred by an event-record 15 cautions, including 12 for accidents, and most were the result of blown tires. Five of the 10 Chase for the championship drivers had tire problems, including Stewart, who crashed hard into the wall after he cut a tire while leading the race.

Stewart — who at one point radioed his crew that he needed “a renewal of my life insurance policy” when they asked if he needed anything — ended up finishing 25th and blew all of his 75-point advantage in the standings. He is now tied at the top with Jimmie Johnson, who had his own tire problem but still managed to win his fourth-consecutive race at Lowe’s.

“It’s just one of those screwed-up nights that’s probably going to dictate the way the Chase comes out,” Stewart growled. “It’s over with. We’re stuck with it the way it is.

“It just sucks when you’re the fastest car and something that’s out of your control happens like that that really shouldn’t happen.”

NASCAR took the unusual step of issuing a mid-race mandate on air pressure requirements for the right front tires, then sent its inspectors up and down pit road to make sure teams were obeying the order. Those reluctant to meet the mandate were told they would be docked points.

Stewart said it was one of the most bizarre things he had seen NASCAR do in his career.

“I thought I’d seen all the craziest things I’d think I could ever see in this sport and (this) just proved to me there will be something else down the road that will keep that line open in my head that we’re not done seeing stupid things happen,” he said.

Chase for the Cup final standings Driver Points Behind 1. Jimmie Johnson 6,723 -- 2. Jeff Gordon 6,646 77 3. Clint Bowyer 6,377 346 4. Matt Kenseth 6,298 425 5. Kyle Busch 6,293 430 6. Tony Stewart 6,242 481 7. Kurt Busch 6,231 492 7. Jeff Burton 6,231 492 9. Carl Edwards 6,222 501 10. Kevin Harvick 6,199 524 11. Martin Truex Jr. 6,164 559 12. Denny Hamlin 6,143 580 Standings final as of Nov. 18

But NASCAR president Mike Helton, in a rare post-race interview session, defended his mandate.

“NASCAR was acting in the best interest of finishing this event and as correctly as it could,” Helton said. “We took that step, which was more unusual than we have done in the past.

“We talked about a lot of options ... and the recommended air pressure was the one we came up with to try to get through the evening. Certainly, we talked about a lot of options — including the possibility of having to shorten the race. But we never got to that extreme.”

Goodyear spokesman Phil Holmer said more than half of the blown right front tires was attributed to teams starting with lower-than-recommended air pressure and the company “told and told and told (teams) to keep their air pressures up and for some reason they don’t want to do it.”

He said Goodyear still was trying to assess what went wrong, but that the company never told NASCAR to stop the race.

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“Is the track too fast? Don’t know,” Holmer said. “Maybe in a few weeks when we get all the information and put it all together we might know something.”

Wheeler also defended his changes to the track surface, explaining that the bumps around the speedway were so bad he had to do something. So he chose to “levigate” certain spots on the asphalt, a $250,000 grinding process, before the track hosted its May races.

But when the Cup race in May was marred by a NASCAR-record 22 cautions, Wheeler went back and levigated the rest of the track. He hoped to make it through Saturday night, resigned to the fact he will have to repave the facility this winter.

“It was a tough night for everybody,” Wheeler said. “Nobody liked it, I certainly didn’t. But we’ll get back to normal next time.”