Top 5 and 5 to watch: Homestead

Top 5 and 5 to watch: Homestead


1. Denny Hamlin, 94.7 driver rating. The intangible with Hamlin is whether he can put last week's disappointing finish at Phoenix behind him. He leads Jimmie Johnson by 15 points and Kevin Harvick by 46. It's a battle royal among the three. Hamlin won this race last year and has three top fives among his five starts. What's so odd about Hamlin at Homestead is his rotten qualifying runs. His average start is 34.0 with a best of 25th. On the other hand, starting 38th last year didn't seem to be a problem. But does he really want to start so deep in the field in such an important race? Doubtful.
2. Jimmie Johnson, 92.9. A knock on Johnson is that he has never won at Homestead. That's hollow criticism because in his nine starts, he hasn't had to win there in the past four. He has three top fives and six top 10s. His one DNF, for a crash in 2005, was simply a matter of Johnson pushing his car to the limit to try to win the Chase. If he had run a normal Johnson race, that 40th-place finish likely would have been another top 10, if not a top five.
3. Kevin Harvick, 101.1. Harvick's odds are pretty long, so he has to go all-in Sunday. Unless Hamlin and Johnson get knocked out early, Harvick needs to win, lead the most laps and hope for the best. And even that might not be enough. He has four top fives in nine starts. Look for Harvick to charge to the front, through people if someone is holding him up. “Boys, have at it” has been mostly about retribution this year. But what happens if Harvick “has at it” while on the offensive?
4. Carl Edwards, 111.0. Edwards snapped his 70-race winless drought a week before most people figured he would. He has a 6.5 average finish at Homestead with a win, three top fives and five top 10s in six starts. His previous victory before last week at Phoenix was at Homestead in 2008. If anyone is a candidate for max points at Homestead , it's Edwards. He will give no quarter Sunday to the top three.
5. Matt Kenseth, 105.3. Kenseth won this race in 2007 for his second top five. He finished seventh last week and second the week before, so he is coming on at the end of the season. Kenseth hasn't won since the second race of the 2009 season and should have a car that can snap his 69-race drought.

Five to watch:
6. Jeff Gordon, 95.1. Sunday is Gordon's last chance to get his first win since April 2009. If Gordon is in the mix at the end, it'll be interesting to see how he plays it should Johnson need some help in the closing laps. Shoot, the guy already gave Johnson his pit crew, what more can the 48 team want? Right? Gordon is winless at Homestead but has nine top 10s in 11 starts, including five top fives.
8. Greg Biffle, 99.0. Biffle is part of the strong Roush Fenway Racing contingent that has won six of the 11 Homestead races. Biffle won three in a row (2004-06) to lead the way (Kenseth, Edwards and Kurt Busch have the other victories). Biffle, like all the Roush drivers, is showing late-season strength. He has top fives the past two weeks.
13. Mark Martin, 91.9. Martin is 24 points ahead of Jamie McMurray for the top spot outside the Chase. Martin is working on a 2010 streak of back-to-back top 10s and four in the past six races. In fact, Martin hasn't finished worse than 14th in the past eight races. Four of Martin's five top 10s at Homestead are top fives. He is winless in 2010, so you know what will be on his mind Sunday.
14. Jamie McMurray, 75.5. Two drivers will feel like winners this offseason: the Chase champion and Jamie McMurray, who won the Daytona 500, Brickyard 400 and the fall race at Charlotte. McMurray missed the Chase, but what a season he has had. And if he closes it with a win at Homestead , it'll be a tangible reminder to everyone that you still can be on top of the world when you're not in the Chase. McMurray has three top 10s at Homestead including his only top five, a third, in 2008.
16. Joey Logano, 64.0. Logano will feel good about his season, too. Just not at the level of the champ and McMurray. But the way he is finishing the season is really building his confidence for 2011. In the past five races, Logano has finished 7th, 6th, 5th, 4th and 3rd. He finished 24th last year in his first start. If he finishes second Sunday, the winner of the first race of 2011, the Daytona 500, will be revealed.
By Bill Marx

Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service