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The Race: Ford 400
The Place: Homestead-Miami Speedway
The Date: Sunday, Nov. 20
The Time: 3 p.m. (ET)
TV: ESPN, 2 p.m. (ET)
Radio: MRN, Sirius XM Ch. 90
Distance: 400.5 miles (267 laps)

Homestead-Miami Speedway Sprint Cup Quick Facts

Location – Homestead, FL
Completed – 1995
Distance – 1.5 miles
Shape – Oval
Banking
18-20° turns
4° straights
Frontstretch : 1,760 feet
Backstretch : 1,760 feet
Twitter: @HomesteadMiami
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Homestead-Miami-Speedway/20641260926

***Number Sprint Cup Races: 12
***Different Sprint Cup Winners: 8
***Different Sprint Cup Poles (start 1st): 9
***Different Sprint Cup Poles (start 1st) to win: 2 Drivers / Total 2 Times
***Race Record: Tony Stewart 140.335mph (11/14/1999)
***Qualifying Record: Jamie McMurray 181.111mph (11/16/2003)

Homestead-Miami Speedway Sprint Cup History

History
· Groundbreaking for Homestead-Miami Dade Motorsports Complex – as the track was originally named – began Aug. 24, 1993. The first race was a NASCAR Nationwide Series event on Nov. 5, 1995.
· The original configuration was a four-turn, rectangular oval based on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s layout.
· The first NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Homestead was held on Nov. 14, 1999.
· 2002 was the first season of the Championship Weekend at Homestead, with all three of NASCAR’s national series holding their season finale at the same track.

Notebook
· Since the inception of the position-based points system in 1975, only three drivers have made up a points deficit in the season finale: Richard Petty in 1979 (made up two points on Darrell Waltrip), Alan Kulwicki in 1992 (made up 30 points on Davey Allison) and Jimmie Johnson in 2010 (made up 15 points on Denny Hamlin).
· There have been 12 NASCAR Sprint Cup races at Homestead, one per season since 1999.
· Five drivers have competed in all 12 races: Jeff Burton, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte, Elliott Sadler and Tony Stewart.
· David Green won the first pole, in 1999.
· Tony Stewart won the inaugural race, in 1999.
· There have been nine different pole winners. Kurt Busch, Kasey Kahne and Jimmie Johnson lead all drivers, with two.
· There have been eight different race winners, led by Greg Biffle, with three.
· Jack Roush has won seven races, most among owners.
· The race has been won from the pole twice: Bill Elliott (2001) and Kurt Busch (2002).
· The race has been won from a top-10 starting position in nine of 12 races.
· Denny Hamlin won in 2009 from the 38th starting position, the furthest back a race winner has started.
· Three active drivers have averaged a top-10 finish: Carl Edwards (5.7), Kevin Harvick (7.9) and A.J. Allmendinger (8.7).

Homestead-Miami Speedway This Week’s News

This Is It: Carl Edwards, Tony Stewart Vie For It All

All the laps (10,383 so far in 2011), all the miles (13,836.24 of them), all the tracks (22 so far, 23 after this weekend) and all the drivers (81 have started at least one race in 2011) have brought us to this point – a championship showdown that has been whittled down to two drivers and three points going into the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ 36th and final race of 2011.
Rarely – as in twice in the past three-plus decades – does the championship battle get closer than this. NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points leader Carl Edwards holds a scant three-point advantage over second-place Tony Stewart. Under the previous points system, three points roughly translates to 13 points, making this the third-closest margin between first and second going into the final race since the inception of the position-based points structure in 1975. In 1979, Darrell Waltrip held a two-point advantage over Richard Petty. And in 1990, Dale Earnhardt led by six points over Mark Martin heading into the finale.
A unique situation could unfold in Sunday’s Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami speedway – a walk-off win.
If Edwards wins on Sunday, he’s the 2011 champion. If Stewart wins, he’s the champion for the third time in his career. For Edwards, he needs only to finish ahead of Stewart to clinch. For Stewart, he needs only to tie Edwards to clinch. (Stewart owns the tie-breaker, with four wins to Edwards’ one).
A closer look at the two contenders going into the final race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup™…

Carl Edwards
A picture of consistency, Edwards owns series-best numbers in top fives (18) and top 10s (25). But the reason he owns the points lead: his win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway earlier this season. Both Edwards and Stewart have scored the exact same amount of points over the first nine Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup races (356), but Edwards holds his three-point edge thanks to the three Chase bonus points he earned for his win at Las Vegas.
If Edwards holds on to his lead, he’ll join Bobby Labonte as the only two drivers to win both the NASCAR Nationwide Series and NASCAR Sprint Cup championships.
History is on his side. There have been only three season-finale comebacks since 1975. In 1979, Petty overcame the aforementioned two-point deficit to overtake Waltrip; in 1992, Alan Kulwicki erased Davey Allison’s 30-point lead in the finale; and last season, Jimmie Johnson trailed Denny Hamlin by 15 points, but came back to win his fifth consecutive championship.
Another reason for optimism: His success rate at Homestead is practically unmatched. He has two wins, four top fives and six top 10s in seven Homestead starts. He owns the top average finish (5.7) and the top Driver Rating (117.5). He hasn’t finished outside the top 10 since his first visit to the track, a 14th-place run in 2004.
An Edwards championship would be the third for Roush Fenway Racing, following its title with Matt Kenseth in 2003 and Kurt Busch in 2004.

Tony Stewart
A third championship in 2011 would put Stewart on another NASCAR prominence level, historically speaking. Here are the names of those drivers with three series championships: David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Lee Petty and Darrell Waltrip. All are either in the NASCAR Hall of Fame or will be inducted in January.
Stewart already boasts this unique statistic: He’s the only driver to win a series championship under the Chase (2005) and pre-Chase (2002) formats. Now he looks to add another unique accolade, that of driver-owner champion. The last driver-owner to win a series championship was Alan Kulwicki in 1992.
At Homestead, Stewart has two wins, three top fives and six top 10s in 12 starts. His two wins came in the first two races at Homestead, in 1999 and 2000.

Top 12 In Points – Full Points Standings

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VISIT OUR Homestead-Miami Speedway Page
Full Details And Stats

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The Race: Ford 300
The Place: Homestead-Miami Speedway
The Date: Saturday, Nov. 19
The Time: 4:30 p.m. (ET)
TV: ESPN2, 4 p.m. (ET)
Radio: MRN, Sirius XM Ch. 90
Distance: 300 miles (200 laps)

Homestead-Miami Speedway Nationwide Quick Facts

Location – Homestead, FL
Completed – 1995
Distance – 1.5 miles
Shape – Oval
Banking
18-20° turns
4° straights
Frontstretch : 1,760 feet
Backstretch : 1,760 feet
Twitter: @HomesteadMiami
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Homestead-Miami-Speedway/20641260926

***Number Nationwide Races: 15
***Different Nationwide Winners: 11
***Different Nationwide Poles (start 1st): 13
***Different Nationwide Poles (start 1st) to win: 1 Drivers / Total 1 Times
***Race Record: Joe Nemechek 132.191mph (11/10/2001)
***Qualifying Record: Casey Mears 177.936mph (11/20/2004)

Top 12 In Points – Full Points Standings

EVEN MORE DRIVERS STATS FOR THIS WEEKEND AVAILABLE HERE –
STATS IN NEW WINDOW
STATS POP UP

NEW-Click the @ next to driver name for a pop up of that drivers stats this week

OH Kyle. We love to hate him.

But that has little to do with what I think about Kyle’s actions in Friday nights NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Texas. Under caution Kyle but Ron Hornaday Jr into the wall. This all but ended Ron Hornaday’s Championship hopes.

Before you think I am favoring Ron over Kyle your wrong. If the roles would have been reversed…..I would say the same treatment would be needed towards Hornaday.

And it really doesn’t have anything to do with Hornaday’s Championship contention in the Truck Series. It has to do with a driver being ticked off and under caution blatantly putting another driver square into the wall. And it wasn’t like they were slowed up to caution speed either. End of story.

I agree with NASCAR for parking Kyle Busch for the rest of the race and banning him from racing in that weekends Nationwide and Sprint Cup race. On top of that, they have fines Kyle $50,000 for his actions and put him on probation. NASCAR said that if Kyle violates probation he could be indefinitely suspended. While we don’t always hear that language from NASCAR….it is not the first time they have used it.

There have only been a handful of times NASCAR has parked a driver across 2 series lines. But this is the first for parking a driver across all 3 series lines for a weekend. I think that kind of shows how NASCAR feels about Kyle Busch and his…….attitude.

I find it funny how a lot of people this year have been talking about how “mature” he is acting this year. And I would have to agree that his attitude does seem to have improved. Then he does something like this.

Busch did issue an apology letter. What good that is. His Sprint Cup sponsor Mars/M&M’s sponsor was not happy this incident. Even on Sunday when Joe Gibbs was asked if he was going to fire Kyle Busch, he didn’t give a direct answer. Instead he went on about how they were going to help Kyle. And maybe Gibbs can kind of “shuffle this aside” since technically Busch was racing Friday under Kyle Busch Motorsports.

Well…how about “Boys Have It”? Here is what Mike Helton had to say about that.

“The responsibility over the past two or three seasons we’ve given back to the drivers came, I think with a very clear understanding that there could be a line that got crossed,” Helton said. “As annoying as the comments that I’ve made personally in the past about ‘we’ll know it when we see it’ might have been, we saw it [Friday] night. Obviously after the event, a lot of folks put their heads together to decide what, if anything, we would do.

“The volume of occurrences or reactions like I’m talking about, the rarity of those times that we’d make a step like this speak to the uniqueness and the severity of the topic. We understand the ramifications or the ripple effect of us making this type of a move, but we also take our responsibility very serious as to maintaining control of the event in all the garages; so it’s a balance there that we ultimately have to make a decision.”

To me….the whole “boys have it” thing applies more to racing under green flag conditions. Yes we have seen drivers (including Kyle Busch) “rough up” other cars/trucks during cool down laps after a race….or even under caution. And to be honest, I am ok with that. But in my eyes this incident was just ridiculous.

$50,000 fine, parked from the Sprint Cup series race where he really isn’t in Championship contention anyway and put on probation? I am wondering if this is really enough of a penalty?

I will say, a penalty that Kyle Busch had to endure on Sunday was sitting on his pit box watching someone else drive his car in the Sprint Cup series. Denny Hamlin drove for him in the Nationwide Series and Michael McDowell drove for him in the Cup series.