Ford 400: Stewart's Second Title Would Be Sweet News

It's over.

Greg Biffle punted away his chances at Texas two weeks ago, Carl Edwards was never enough of a flat-track guy to stay out in front in Phoenix last week, and Jimmie Johnson's car drove worse than Herbie The Love Bug after a hard-drinking night with Lindsay Lohan. Granted, J.J. did scrap his way up to a seventh-place finish in the desert last week, but considering Stewart finished fourth, the points title is all but his.

Going to Homestead, Florida, this weekend, the Hirsute Stewart totes a 52-point lead over Johnson and an 87-point bulge over Edwards. That means if Tony the Tiger finishes ninth or higher on the high-banked 1.5-miler this weekend, he wins his second Nextel Cup championship. Considering he's got 14 top-5 and 19 top-10 finishes in his last 21 races, that sounds like a pretty darned good bet. He's riding a string of good luck that would make David Spade envious. Granted, he wrecked from the lead in Charlotte a month ago; if that happens to him again on Sunday, he'll lose the title. He'll certainly have to be careful on restarts and passing lapped traffic (Homestead will definitely have lapped traffic), but just as certainly, anyone not in contention for the race lead will give Stewart a wider berth than Star Jones's personal assistant. Naturally, having watched 36 other events this year in which cars were wrecked or blew up, I can definitely envision a circumstance where Stewart flames out, and doesn't win the title. I just don't think it will happen.

And that will make me happy. Before the season started, I gave you my three favorite bets on drivers to win the 2005 Nextel Cup. My #1 pick was Jeff Gordon at 5:1, so we won't talk about that one. My #2 pick was Johnson, also at 5:1. And my #3 pick? Mr. Stewart, at a tasty 10:1. Here's what I wrote about him way back in February:

"I'm not a huge fan, but this is my most favorite, favorite, favorite season wager for '05. Smoke really crushes the final 10 tracks. He loves Atlanta (hasn't failed to finish in the top 10 from 2002-4), Dover (last five races: 6th, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th), Charlotte (all top 10s except one wreck), Martinsville (nothing below 15th), and everyone knows he used to own Homestead. As Gibbs's most powerful team, the Hirsute Stewart (should I call him the Hirstewart?) is essentially a lock to make the Chase, and from there, he's got it in him to catch fire. Whereas the other major contenders are 8:1 or better, you can get Smoke for 10. That's a good deal." Not bad, eh? Considering only Stewart and Johnson are likely to win the crown, I'm in the black on these bets no matter what. But I'd certainly like 10:1 more than 5:1, so I'm rooting for Tony.

However, I don't think he'll win this week's Homestead race. He's going to be driving conservatively, hanging back, 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 ever run at this track, in 1999 and 2000), but that was before this place was reconfigured. In order to eliminate single-groove racing which makes for terrible TV viewing, Homestead became a hybrid track: high-banked in the turns (20 degrees of banking), but a bit more gradual in the way its straightaways slope in and out of the corners. The race winners here since the Big Change are Bobby Labonte (35-1) in 2003 and Greg Biffle (6-1) in a runaway last year. For comparison's sake, we'll look at the high-banked tracks at Dover and Bristol; they're certainly not parallel driving experiences, but being good at those places takes some of the same mechanical thought processes that it takes to be good in Miami.

Last Week: Well, it had to end sometime. Unfortunately, I got my Busches wrong. Heck, unfortunately, I wrote my column early enough that I selected Kurt Busch before his little "reckless driving" charge got him suspended for the rest of 2005. So Kyle Busch won the event late, taking down Biffle, while my head-to-head pick of Dale Earnhardt Jr. over Rusty Wallace similarly crapped out, as Junior popped a tire and hit the wall early. Thus ends a pretty great streak: 15 winning weeks in a row. Ah, well. The great irony is that the last losing head-to-head bet I made, back in mid-July, was also on Junior. Serves me right, I guess. Anyway, going into the season's final event, I lost $2,667 (Busch didn't start, and therefore is a refund) if you're betting a dime per unit along with me; for the season, that puts me at a positive $51,734.50.

Take Greg Biffle (6-1), 1/3rd unit. Biffle has the benefit of being the defending champ in a race where he crushed the field one year ago, and also the best Bristol and Dover racer of 2005. He won the first Dover event and might have won the second if not for a flat tire, and absolutely would have won the first Bristol event, if not for a terrible pit decision to take four tires while everyone else took two. He came back to finish third at the season's second Bristol event, as well. I liked the way he ran at Phoenix last week; he had the best car almost all day, but just couldn't quite keep ahead of Kyle Busch (22-1) when it counted. One has to imagine his team is kicking itself for using an untested shock at Texas, which broke down and caused him all manner of woe in the race two weeks ago. If not for that decision, the Biff could be in second place, pushing Stewart at a track where I put him down as the favorite to win.

Take Jimmie Johnson (5-1), 1/3rd unit. Johnson has finished second and third in the two high-banked Homestead events, and he knows what it's like to drive in a futile attempt to capture the series crown. Last season he trailed Kurt Busch, posted 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 did stay out on old tires and hold off Kyle Busch and others, after Biffle and Kurt Busch had their on-track troubles. Johnson crashed out of the second Bristol race this year, but he posted top-10s in the first Bristol and Dover races. Add to this the fact that he boasts the best four-year average at all the high-banked tracks combined (just ahead of Tony Stewart (7-1), actually), and you've got yourself a desperate driver who knows what it takes to succeed at high-torque events.

Take Rusty Wallace (22-1), 1/3rd unit. This isn't 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'd be the absolute #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 speedway, I'd give him very little chance. But Wallace has been Biffle's equal at Bristol and Dover this year: 5th and 13th at Bristol, 3rd and 5th at Dover. In recent years, Rusty has had a tough time tweaking the setup of his common-template cars as races have gotten down to their final laps, and that's reflected in his price this week. But NASCAR does love a good story, and if Wallace gets anywhere near the lead, you can bet that every driver out there will give him a ton of consideration. Nobody's going to give him anything, and this is still quite a high-risk selection. But given the fact that I picked the two favorites with my first two picks, I'm taking a chance on Rusty here. Despite his overall win drought over the past several years, he's got the sixth-best four-year finishing average on the high-bankers, as well.

In the head-to-head matchup of the week, take Biffle over Tony Stewart (-130), 2 units. I just got through telling you that Stewart is a great high-banked-track driver, and that Biffle is something of a johnny-come-lately to high-banked excellence. However, while I do imagine that Stewart is going to easily get into the top-10, I don't think he has any real interest in winning the race, and his on-course and pit strategies will reflect that. Biffle will be a mad dog out there. He's won this race before, and it springboarded him to a great 2005. I think he's got the best chance of anyone to win this event, so I'm going to take him in my final head-to-head of the season over Stewart.

Christopher Harris is a featured writer for the Professional Handicappers League. Read all of his articles at http://www.procappers.com