Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Fifty-two points.
It's a seemingly insurmountable deficit for Jimmie Johnson to overcome in one race, especially when he's chasing a driver - Tony Stewart - who has 19 top 10s in his past 21 races. If Stewart can make it 20 of 22 by finishing at least ninth on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, there's nothing Johnson or anyone else can do to stop him from winning his second Nextel Cup championship since 2002.
"We really needed to finish ahead of him (Sunday at Phoenix) and cut some of the margin down going into Homestead," said Johnson, who finished seventh, three spots behind Stewart.
Jeff Gordon , a four-time series champion who's seen all kinds of late-season points battles unfold, doesn't expect Johnson to win in some epic door-to-door battle. He said if Johnson is to overcome such a big deficit, it's likely to be "easy."
"Usually, when you make up 52 points it's easy," he said. "It's not difficult. It's because something happens. You don't make it up because a guy ran badly and you went out there and led every lap and won the race. It's usually that they have a blown motor or a cut tire or a wrecked race car."
Stewart has put himself in position to win the title by avoiding such mishaps. His only DNF of the season came in the seventh race at Texas.
ANOTHER DAY: Stewart, meanwhile, keeps trying to deflect attention and pressure by insisting that the season finale is just another race. That said, he is thankful for a busy schedule this week to keep those nagging thoughts away.
"I have a lot of stuff to keep me busy," he said. "I've got Home Depot commercials to shoot (Monday) and Tuesday and I think the whole team, we're all going fishing on Wednesday. That's something we're all looking forward to doing together as a team and that'll get us straight into the weekend."
SHORT DEFENSE: On Friday, just hours before he was cited for criminal reckless driving, and two days before he was suspended for the rest of the season by Roush Racing for his abusiveness to police during the incident, Kurt Busch reflected on the ill-fated defense of his series championship.
Busch insisted that his team never quit on him, even after he asked to be released from his contract to join Penske Racing South a year early in 2006.
"It has been a great year. It has been wonderful to be NASCAR champion," he said. "To defend this title, we did it to the best of our capability and they say it takes quite a bit of luck to win a championship and maybe we used up a little bit of that last year, because this time around we've had maybe one good race in the Chase this year.
"We've had Charlotte where we finished second. Yeah, we finished sixth at Martinsville, but had to come back from a penalty that was off the wall. We've had flat tires most all the events. Whether they were induced, whether we ran something over, you've got to have those lucky days to help you gain those points. We just started off this thing on a bad foot, crashing on Lap 3 (at New Hampshire). It's been tough, but still, we've been proud of what we've done. Right now, if we can bump up a few more spots, that would be great but three wins is nothing to feel ashamed of."
Busch fell one spot to ninth in the standings, and 10th-place Jeremy Mayfield would overtake him by finishing 42nd or better at Homestead.
OTHER SIDE: Open wheel racers Paul Tracy , a former Champ Car champion, and Indy Racing League rookie of the year Danica Patrick each toured the garagearea at Phoenix last weekend.
Tracy strolled with a female companion and Patrick, who lives in Phoenix, chatted with team owner Jack Roush in the No.97 Ford garage stall as Kenny Wallace was fitted for a seat so he could replace Busch.