Guess what, NASCAR champion decided Sunday

Gordon will retire after Sunday’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where he pushed aside a season of mediocrity and clawed his way into the championship picture.

Perhaps the greatest tribute to Gordon is that almost everyone in the sport who doesn’t have an affiliation or allegiance to one of the other championship contenders is pulling for Gordon. There’s an 80 percent chance of thunderstorms. The driver with the highest finish would be crowned the champion of NASCAR, regardless of points. Win or lose, he’s retiring at the end of the race and will cap one of the most storied careers in NASCAR history. Tony Stewart also completed the sweep in 2011.

The first round was an adventure for championship contender Jeff Gordon, who needed two runs to advance to the second round.

“It means so much to have the opportunity to help these younger drivers, to help these kids who are coming up through the ranks to succeed”. “Think about what happened to us in Daytona, and to come back and be (at Homestead), I certainly think it was a huge effort on (Busch’s) part”. You want to respect what he’s done as a person.

He continued: “You know, you’re confident in what you have, but you can’t be confident in the results just for the fact that you just never know what can reach out and grab you”.

“I need three clutch laps like that to close this race out on Sunday”, he said, laughing. “There’s pressure because the whole team wants it badly but we know it won’t be easy”.

Day One segues into the last day of the season, today at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

In the first race of the Eliminator Round at Martinsville, Kenseth seemed to intentionally wreck Logano, who had led most of the race.

At the same time, they still have their own self-serving priorities. I think that those comments and suggestions of how you handle your week have just rolled over into things that we’ve done this year, and you just don’t let those types of situations overwhelm you. “So you keep that in mind for sure”. “We can’t compare what we’ve done at other races”. “We’re not too far outside of the box”.

On Sunday, Gordon will go after the most unlikely of career endings in motor racing.

“Qualifying position here doesn’t matter much”, Busch said.

Mars announced earlier this week it had extended its M&Ms sponsorship with Busch and Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 18 Toyota team for the next several seasons, but Busch only revealed his extension on Thursday.

The Wood Brothers team has run a limited schedule in recent seasons. (174.498 mph) will start fifth and 11th, respectively, with defending champion Kevin Harvick taking the green from the 13th starting spot.

Harvick said he wasn’t concerned about his relatively slow run. “This race is really hard on tires, really wears tires out, and long runs are going to be key, so looking forward to getting out there tomorrow and working on our vehicle and seeing what we have for Sunday”. “That’s insane. I mean, that’s life changing”, he said.

Truex grasped the microphone when it was his turn and, with a wry smile, said: “The way I see it, these three next to me are supposed to win the championship and I’m probably not”. “Having that playbook of what we did previous year and knowing that you can tweak on that a little bit and knowing how to manage the week is something that you can’t put a price on because you’ve been there, done that, and you have to try to get better each time”. “We never really could get the balance of the vehicle just like we wanted”.

“Right now I’m not even thinking or fathoming that”. But once again, Gordon proved his critics wrong, winning the 2001 championship with new crew chief Robbie Loomis.

Gordon was the first driver to resonate on Madison Avenue, and he quickly became a household name.

They have confidence the 93-time victor can do the rest.