Ford 400: Stewart’s second title would be good news

C’est fini.

Greg Biffle blew his chances at Texas two weeks ago, Carl Edwards was never good enough to stay in front at Phoenix last week, and Jimmie Johnson’s car drove worse than Herbie The Love Bug after a night of binge drinking. . with Lindsay Lohan. Of course, JJ worked his way up to a seventh in the desert last week, but considering Stewart finished fourth, the points title is anything but his.

Going to Homestead, Florida, this weekend, Hirsute Stewart has a 52-point lead over Johnson and an 87-point lead over Edwards. That means if Tony the Tiger finishes ninth or higher in the 1.5-mile high bank race this weekend, he’ll win his second Nextel Cup championship. Considering he has 14 top-5s and 19 top-10s in his last 21 races, he sounds like a pretty good bet. He’s riding a streak of good luck that would make David Spade envious. Of course, he wrecked from the lead at Charlotte a month ago; if that happens to him again on Sunday, he will lose the title. He’ll no doubt have to watch out for restarts and passing lap traffic (Homestead will definitely have lap traffic), but just as certainly, anyone not in contention for the race lead will give Stewart a larger space than Star Jones personal assistant. Naturally, having seen 36 other events this year where cars wrecked or exploded, I can definitely envision a circumstance where Stewart burns out and doesn’t win the title. I just don’t think it happens.

And that will make me happy. Before the season began, I gave you my top three bets on the drivers to win the 2005 Nextel Cup. My No. 1 pick was Jeff Gordon at 5:1, so we won’t talk about that. My second pick was Johnson, also at 5:1. And my choice #3? Mr. Stewart, to a tasty 10:1. This is what I wrote about him in February:

“I’m not a huge fan, but this is my favorite season bet for 2005. Smoke really crushes the last 10 tracks. He loves Atlanta (hasn’t stopped finishing in the top 10 since 2002-4), Dover (last five races: 6th, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th), Charlotte (all top 10 except one crash), Martinsville (nothing under 15), and everyone knows he used to own from the Homestead team, the Hirsute. Stewart (should I call him the Hirstewart?) is essentially a lock to make the Chase, and from there, he has everything to fire up. While the other top contenders are 8:1 or better, you can get Smoke for 10 . That’s a good deal.”
Not bad, huh? Considering that only Stewart and Johnson have odds on the crown, I’m sure of these bets no matter what. But I’d certainly like 10:1 more than 5:1, so I support Tony.

However, I don’t think he will win the Homestead race this week. He’ll drive conservatively, lagging behind, just making sure he’s in the top 10 all day. Stewart used to be the king of Miami racing (he won the first two races at this track, in 1999 and 2000), but that was before this place was reconfigured. In order to eliminate the single-groove racing that makes for terrible TV viewing, Homestead became a hybrid track: high banked in the turns (20 degree banked), but a little more gradual in shape. in which its lines slope in and out. corners Race winners here since the Big Change are Bobby Labonte (35-1) in 2003 and Greg Biffle (6-1) in a breakaway last year. For the sake of comparison, we’ll look at the high banked tracks at Dover and Bristol; They certainly aren’t parallel driving experiences, but being good in those places requires some of the same mechanical thought processes that are needed to be good in Miami.

Last Week: Well, it had to end at some point. Unfortunately, I was wrong about Busches. Hell, unfortunately, I wrote my column early enough to select Kurt Busch before his little “reckless driving” charge got him suspended for the rest of 2005. So Kyle Busch won the event late, knocking Biffle down, while my face to face Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s head pick over Rusty Wallace similarly broke down, as Junior blew a flat tire and hit the wall early. Thus ends a pretty good streak: 15 winning weeks in a row. Oh ok. The great irony is that the last losing head-to-head bet I made, in mid-July, was also on Junior. Serves me well I guess. Anyway, before the final event of the season, I lost $2,667 (Busch didn’t start and therefore it’s a refund) if you bet a penny a unit with me; for the season, that puts me at a positive $51,734.50.

Take Greg Biffle (6-1), 1/3 unit. Biffle has the advantage of being the defending champion in a race in which he crushed the field a year ago, and also the best Bristol and Dover runner of 2005. He won the first Dover event and might have won the second if not for a prick. , and he absolutely would have won the first Bristol event, were it not for a terrible decision in the pits to take four tires while everyone else took two. He too came back to finish third at the second event of the season at Bristol. I liked the way he raced at Phoenix last week; he had the better car most of the day, but couldn’t keep ahead of Kyle Busch (22-1) when he counted. One has to imagine that his team is criticizing itself for using an untested shock in Texas, which broke down and caused him all sorts of problems in the race two weeks ago. If it weren’t for that decision, the Biff could be in second place, pushing Stewart to a track where he put him as the favorite to win.

Take Jimmie Johnson (5-1), 1/3 unit. Johnson finished second and third in the two high-bank Homestead events, and knows what it’s like to drive in a futile attempt to capture the series crown. Last season he trailed Kurt Busch, he got that second place finish and still couldn’t win his first points championship. Johnson didn’t have the best car during the second Dover race this year, but he stuck to old tires and held off Kyle Busch and others after Biffle and Kurt Busch struggled on track. Johnson crashed out of the second Bristol race this year, but posted top-10 finishes in the opening Bristol and Dover races. Add to that the fact that he has the best four-year average on all high-banked tracks combined (just ahead of Tony Stewart (7-1), actually), and you’ve got a desperate driver who knows what’s coming. is. he is needed to succeed in high-torque events.

Take Rusty Wallace (22-1), 1/3 unit. This is not just an emeritus bet. I like the odds. The Ford 400 will be Wallace’s final event as a full-time Nextel Cup driver, and yes, he would be the outright No. 1 sentimental favorite if he could somehow win one more race. Normally, given the fact that he’s in a Dodge and this is an unrestricted intermediate track, he’d give her very little opportunity. But Wallace has been right up there with Biffle at Bristol and Dover this year: 5th and 13th at Bristol, 3rd and 5th at Dover. In recent years, Rusty has struggled to adjust the setup of his common template cars as races wind down, and that’s reflected in his price this week. But NASCAR loves a good story, and if Wallace comes close to the lead, you can bet that all the drivers will consider him highly. No one is going to give him anything, and this is still a pretty risky pick. But given the fact that I went with the two favorites with my first two picks, I’m taking a chance on Rusty here. Despite his overall win drought in recent years, he also has the sixth-best final four-year average on the high benchers.

In this week’s head-to-head matchup, take Biffle over Tony Stewart (-130), 2 points. I just finished telling you that Stewart is a great high bank track driver, and that Biffle is something of a newcomer to high bank excellence. However, while I imagine Stewart will easily break into the top 10, I don’t think he has any real interest in winning the race, and his on-track and pit strategies will reflect that. Biffle will be a mad dog out there. He’s won this race before, and it catapulted him into a great 2005. I think he has the best chance of anyone to win this event, so I’ll be pitting him against Stewart in my last head-to-head of the season. .