Homestead may be winner-take-all affair

Homestead may be winner-take-all affair


By Jim Pedley
Special to Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

The stats, the intangibles and the contenders' words all seem to suggest that his weekend's season-ending Ford 400 has shaken out as a winner-take-all race.
Win at Homestead-Miami Speedway, probably win the championship.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's going to take a win" to become champion, driver Denny Hamlin insisted this week.
Theoretically, Hamlin is the guy who should be least concerned about winning. He will start Sunday's race as points leader.
But that lead—which was 33 points a week ago—is just 15 points this week. It is the slimmest lead in the seven-year history of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup with one race to go. And if that isn't ominous enough, four-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson is the person right behind.
Thirty-one points behind Johnson is Kevin Harvick. A victory by Harvick on Sunday and burps by Hamlin and Johnson, and team owner Richard Childress could be kissing the big silver trophy in Homestead .
Concerned? You better believe Hamlin, an eight-race winner this year, is concerned.
"I hate that it boils down to the final race, but that's what fans love and things like that," he said. "I felt like we've been the best car over this Chase and we might not win it."
Stats provide good news for all three contenders.
Hamlin won Homestead a year ago, leading 71 laps. He has three podium finishes in five starts there and will be in the car which won Texas two weeks ago.
"If you look at stats, yes, it's good," Hamlin said. "It looks good for us. If you look at history, it looks good for us."
Homestead is one of the four current Cup tracks where Johnson has not won. But it's not like he's stunk, either. He has two poles—which are big in tight title chases—and six top 10s with 71 laps led. And brother does he want to win at Homestead .
A come-from-behind championship, he said, "Would probably be received better than the ones in the past, with the runaway show we've had on a couple of them. I don't care how I win it. However we win it, that's cool. I would love to come back and win from behind and eliminate that stat because that seems to be the only thing that everyone talks about right now."
Harvick's Homestead numbers are best of three. Though he has never won there, his average finish is in nine starts is 8.4. That is 2.2 places better than Hamlin and 4.3 better than Johnson.
Perhaps the best number for Harvick, oddly enough, is 46—the points between him and the lead.
"We have a great racetrack for us," Harvick said, "and we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. There's really nothing else that matters at this point. Just throw it all out there, and if it gets rough, it gets rough. If it doesn't, then we just go race and see where it all falls in the end. It's still a no-pressure, no-lose situation for us, and I like it."
While Hamlin, Johnson and Harvick are all arriving at Homestead with different histories and from different angles, they also will all be coming at with a shared mindset: The winner takes all on Sunday.
"That's the mentality I'm going to have next week, is to win the race," Hamlin said. "Full-court press will be on. It will be one of those things where you'll probably see me as aggressive as I've been all year."