Rain, thunderstorms expected for NASCAR’s championship weekend

Love it or hate it, the Chase is how the champ will be determined.

– Kyle Busch is also in the hunt for the title, which would be his first career Sprint Cup championship. And Johnson’s brilliance – six championships in eight years, including five in a row from 2006 to 2010 – has arguably been the single biggest factor in Gordon not winning even more races and championships. Harvick is the only driver of the four with experience dealing with the pressures and stress of the 400-mile title race under the current Chase format, which will add a layer of interest to the story.

A year ago Kevin Harvick won the race, but beat Chase contender Ryan Newman who finished second. Adam Stevens [crew chief] and these guys, they worked hard and they persevered all through the beginning part of the season when I was gone working with David Ragan and Erik Jones and Matt Crafton and those guys that drove my race vehicle.

Then and now: This is the race for all the marbles, the 2015 Sprint Cup championship. The odds are current as of Thursday morning for your NASCAR betting or fantasy racing leagues. This will be the 21st Xfinity Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway…. Looking at the stats though Harvick is a clear favorite. Harvick and crew chief Rodney Childers put together a year that was statistically better than the title performance of last season.

Gordon is in his last season as a full-time NASCAR driver, and a Chase title would be the ideal feather in the cap of his illustrious career. His rating of 106.6 is tops over Harvick at 102.5, Gordon at 100.7, and Busch at 91.5. He’s surely upset about not advancing to the final four after sweeping the three Eliminator Round races.

At the time, Bill Elliott was the only driver to successfully win the Winston Million, earning him the nickname of “Million Dollar Bill” in 1985. In 10 starts here he has no wins, one top five (10.0%) and three top 10s (30.0%). And like Junior past year, Logano’s not in the upcoming The Chase finale. Why? “You always want to win when you have a auto like we had (Sunday), but I’ll take it again (at Homestead)”.

“I’ve got (no titles)”, Busch said. He edged Carl Edwards by five points for the final spot in Sunday’s championship round.

Why he won’t: Homestead is a mile-and-a-half around and that size track has confounded the No. 24 team this season – Gordon’s best result is fourth on ovals of that length.

However, one last race won’t define Gordon’s career. A win Sunday would considerably raise his profile and begin building a case that he may be one of the sport’s all-time greats. If his mid-season struggles don’t come back to haunt him Sunday, he may very well do just that. Gustafson: “Because we’re 22nd, going backward”. The stats seemed to give him a little hope. He broke a leg and a foot in a crash at Daytona in February, which cost him 11 starts. His runner-up finish was good enough to keep his dream of repeating as champion alive as he topped the points for the Eliminator round. Truex has been the Cinderella story of the Chase and he could be wearing those glass slippers at the end of the day Sunday. And though a championship would transform Truex Jr.’s career – a journeyman driver with all of three wins in 368 starts – the win has the potential for Furniture Row Racing, a mid-size team with limited resources, to break the stranglehold Hendrick, JGR, SHR and a few others have on the championship. He was sixth here past year but look for him to make a strong statement after his suspension by finishing off his season with a win. Antron Brown (Top Fuel) and Erica Enders (Pro Stock) also won championships, but clinched their respective crowns two weeks ago at Las Vegas.

Note of interest: Furniture Row could become the first single-car team to win the championship since 1994 when Dale Earnhardt won his seventh and final title driving for Richard Childress Racing.

Qualifying on Friday might help narrow down the victor. 11 of the 16 (68.8%) NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at Homestead have been won from a starting position inside the top 10, while only two of the 16 (12.5%) have been won from the pole.