One thing is sure about this Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway: there will be a first-time champion crowned. With the new Chase format this year the four drivers eligible to race for the title on Sunday have never won a Cup championship. Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, and Ryan Newman are the ‘final four’ – the champion will be the driver who finishes the best on Sunday – that’s it, simple, no bonus points, nada. And while these four are each looking to claim the big prize there will be 39 other drivers out there looking to win the race – eight of them are drivers that were eliminated during the Chase, and each of them are battling for the fifth-place in final standings. Following is a closer look at some of the storylines to follow this weekend… (Left to right) Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, and Ryan Newman (photo – NASCAR via Getty Images) Harvick Heads To Homestead In Hunt For First Championship Entering the penultimate race at Phoenix in last place among Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup contenders, Kevin Harvick could only guarantee himself a spot in The Championship 4 by winning at the Arizona track. Shrugging off the pressure, Harvick turned in a dominant performance leading 264 of 312 laps on his way to Victory Lane. Now, Harvick heads into Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 Championship Round Race at Homestead-Miami Speedway (3 p.m. ET on ESPN) needing just one more clutch performance to earn his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title in his 14 years competing on the circuit. Following last Sunday’s showdown at Phoenix, Harvick and the three other drivers who advanced to The Championship 4 – Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman – had their points reset to 5,000. At Homestead, the format is simple. Drivers cannot earn bonus points for leading laps. Whoever crosses the line first among the quartet will win the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship. None of the drivers have ever won a NSCS title, guaranteeing that the series will crown its 30th champion in its 66-year history. Harvick, whose 109.9 driver rating and 2,083 laps led lead the series, has to like his odds of taking home his first title. He has finished higher than Logano, Hamlin and Newman in 11 races this season – the most of the Championship 4. Comparatively, Logano was the highest finisher of the four in 10 races; Hamlin in eight and Newman in six. Although he has never won at Homestead, he has been highly successful at the 1.5-mile track with five top fives, 11 tops 10s and an average finish of 8.1 in 13 starts. The No. 4 Budweiser/Jimmy John’s Chevrolet driver has two victories in the past five weeks and four total this season. If Harvick wins the championship, he would join Bobby Labonte and Brad Keselowski as only the third driver to boast both a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series championship. Competing in his first season with Stewart-Haas Racing, he would earn the organization its second premier series title. Logano Looks For One More Large Performance In Chase No driver has been better in this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup than Joey Logano. The 24-year-old has coasted his way to the Championship 4 behind a Chase-best 5.3 average finish and two victories. To earn his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship, Logano likely needs to produce one more dominant effort in Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The No. 22 Team Penske driver does not need to win the event to take home the title, but instead must finish ahead of Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman – a task he has completed 10 times this season. Logano has the worst previous statistics at Homestead among the Championship 4 with one top 10 and an average finish of 20.8 in five starts there. The silver lining… he finished eighth at Homestead last season in his first campaign with Team Penske and has performed at an elite level on 1.5-mile tracks this year. In Logano’s nine starts at 1.5 mile courses in 2014, he boasts two victories and leads all drivers with a 5.8 average finish and six top-five performances. If Logano wins the championship, at 24 years, 5 months and 23 days, he would become the youngest driver to capture the series crown since Jeff Gordon in 1995 – and third premier series champion under the age of 25, joining Gordon and Bill Rexford, who was 23 years old when he won the title in 1950. A native of Middletown, Connecticut, he would be the first driver from the Constitution State to win a NASCAR premier series title. In addition, a Logano championship would mark the second title for Team Penske, that claimed its first with the efforts of Brad Keselowski in 2012. Currently leading the NASCAR Nationwide Series owner standings by 29 points, Roger Penske’s racing outfit has a legitimate chance of becoming the first team to win a NSCS, NNS and IndyCar championship in the same season. Hamlin Hopes To Repeat At Homestead After going winless the first 35 races last year, Denny Hamlin captured the checkered flag in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway to salvage his streak of notching at least one victory in each of his first eight full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series campaigns. The stakes are higher for the No. 11 FedEx driver in Sunday’s Championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. If Hamlin wins at the 1.5-mile track, or just finishes ahead of Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano and Ryan Newman, he will capture his first series championship. Hamlin expressed his confidence in a title race at Homestead on Eliminator 8 Media Day, saying: “Truth be told, if you ask me ‘you have one race to race heads up for a championship, pick either Martinsville or Homestead?’ I’d almost pick Homestead simply because we’ve just had a lot of success there over these last few years and it’s been a great track for us.” Hamlin has won at the Miami-area track twice and also claims four top-five and ten top-10 finishes there. In 2010, Hamlin found himself in a similar situation in the biggest race of his life prior to Sunday – the Ford 400 season finale at Homestead. The Chesterfield, Virginia native entered the race 15 points ahead of Jimmie Johnson for the standings lead. With the championship in his sights, Hamlin failed to stave off Johnson. He qualified 37th and spun on the 25th lap, events that culminated in a 14th-place finish. Johnson took second to win his fifth straight title. With a new shot at redemption, Hamlin can accomplish two major milestones by winning the championship: Unable to compete at Auto Club in March due to an injury caused by a piece of metal lodged into the back of his eye, Hamlin can become the first NSCS champion to miss a race since NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty in 1971. Petty missed two races that year: A Daytona qualifying races – which was a points race at that time – and a race in Macon, Georgia’s Middle Georgia Raceway. Hamlin, 33, can pilot the first Toyota to a NSCS title. Master of Survival: Newman Can Capture Cup Title At Homestead On the final lap of last Sunday’s penultimate race at Phoenix, Ryan Newman found himself on the verge of elimination, needing to gain one more position from his 12th-place spot on the track. In a final move of desperation, Newman was able to force Kyle Larson into the Turn 4 wall and pass him for 11th-place – a performance that put him one point ahead of Jeff Gordon for the final berth in the Championship 4. Newman’s Arizona effort was not the first time he rose to the occasion under pressure in this season’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Clinging onto the final position on the Chase Grid entering the Challenger Round cutoff race at Dover, the No. 31 Caterpillar, Inc./Quicken Loans driver produced an eighth-place finish to advance to the Contender Round. He also avoided “The Big One” at Talladega and registered a third-place showing in the process to solidify his spot in the Eliminator Round. The NASCAR world will see if Newman has one more clutch effort left in the tank for Sunday’s Championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. A 13-year full-time veteran of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Newman can capture his first title in any NASCAR national series by finishing ahead of Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin. In 12 Homestead starts, Newman owns one top five and four top 10s. His highest finish at the Miami-area track was a third-place showing in 2012. One potential note of interest: Newman is the only one of the Championship 4 who did not test at Homestead at the end of October. Competing in his first season with Richard Childress Racing, Newman can earn the organization its first premier series title since 1994 when Dale Earnhardt captured RCR its sixth championship. Newman would be the only driver other than Earnhardt (six titles) to clinch a premier series crown with RCR. Newman has proven to be the true underdog story in the Chase. Despite not winning a race during the regular season, the consistent 36-year-old racked up 10 top-10 finishes and placed lower than 30th only two times to clinch the 16th and final spot in NASCAR’s playoffs. No matter how Newman fares at Homestead, he will achieve a career-best finish in the final standings. His previous high finish was sixth – a feat he has achieved three times (2002, ’03, ’06). Fast Five: Battle For Fifth The spotlight is on the Championship 4 this week, but 39 other drivers will also compete in Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, including the 12 eliminated Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup competitors. Drivers eliminated in any of the first three rounds of the Chase can still finish as high as fifth in the final standings, no matter in which segment they were knocked out. Once removed from NASCAR’s playoffs, a driver’s points total is reset to 2,000 (plus any bonus points from regular season wins) and his points accumulated during Chase races are added. At the moment, Brad Keselowski occupies the fifth spot in the standings with an eight-point advantage over Jeff Gordon. Matt Kenseth (24 points behind Keselowski), Kyle Bush (-40), Carl Edwards (-42) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (-39) round out the top 10. As is the case almost every week, series wins leader Keselowski and four-time NSCS champion Gordon are two of the favorites to win at Homestead. Keselowski has finished worse than 20th in three of his six career Homestead starts, but finished sixth there last season and leads the circuit with three victories on 1.5-mile tracks this season. Gordon won at Homestead in 2012 and boasts seven top fives and 11 top 10s in 15 starts at the Miami oval. Although Carl Edwards has not had the fastest car lately, he is a likely contender for the checkered flag on Sunday. The No. 99 Fastenal/Aflac Ford driver, who races for the final time for Roush Fenway Racing on Sunday, has been strong at Homestead throughout his career with two wins, five top fives, seven top 10s and two Coors Light Pole Awards. Edwards’ Homestead loop statistics, including series bests in average running position (8.0), driver rating (115.5) and fastest laps run (266), back up his race results. Last year’s NSCS champion Jimmie Johnson is currently 13th in the standings, 80 points behind Keselowski. source – NASCAR communications
