Daily NASCAR

Mark Martin checks out statistics in the garage of teammate Jimmie Johnson during practice for today’s Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Martin is second in points in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, 108 points behind Johnson. Johnson won the pole, but Martin starts just two positions behind him. (Photo :Getty Images for NASCAR)

Even though Ford Championship Weekend is a bit of a misnomer, this is still the: Ford 400.

NASCAR’s capital of pastel shades of green, yellow and blue: Homestead-Miami Speedway, Homestead, Fla.

Not exactly comforting to the also-rans: Jimmie Johnson, who has never won here, is on the pole.

Big guns: Johnson, Greg Biffle, Mark Martin, Carl Edwards, Juan Pablo Montoya, Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman, Kasey Kahne and Matt Kenseth.

Long shots: Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer, Marcos Ambrose, Scott Speed, Jeff Burton, Casey Mears, David Reutimann, Jamie McMurray and David Ragan.

The hunch here: Johnson.

Just the facts, please

- This is the only track on the schedule where Jeff Gordon has never won.

- Jack Roush-owned Fords have won this race the past five years.

- Johnson’s average finish this season is 11.3. Mark Martin, the runner-up in points, has an average of 13.7. The best average finish belongs to Tony Stewart (10.1).

- Juan Pablo Montoya’s average finish at what is essentially his home track (he lives in Miami) is only 22.0.

- The best Homestead average finish among Chase drivers belongs to Carl Edwards (6.4), who won the Ford 400 last year.

Snappy quotes

"To be honest with you, my goal next year is to be able to match the performance we had this year. Of course, you want more things." - Juan Pablo Montoya.

"This is it. This is our last shot to get a win this season, so we couldn’t come to a better race track." - Carl Edwards.

"I would have to say this is probably as good as it gets." - Rick Hendrick, whose drivers occupy the top three spots in the Sprint Cup standings.

"The only car I’ve driven in the Cup Series has been a Chevy. It’s been a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and a Lowe’s Chevrolet. I’m very, very proud of that stuff." - Jimmie Johnson.

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Jimmie Johnson (left) is the only driver with any competition for a NASCAR series championship in this weekend’s trio of races at Homestead. Also pictured: Kurt Busch, who only has to start Saturday’s race in order to win the Nationwide Series title, and Ron Hornaday, who has already clinched the Camping World Truck Series title.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. - There may not be much of a race for the Sprint Cup championship, but it’s the only one left as NASCAR closes its season at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Jimmie Johnson’s comfortable margin the Sprint Cup Series is the only one left to defend on what is, optimistically as it turns out, billed as Ford Championship Weekend.

Ron Hornaday’s fourth championship has already been clinched in the Camping World Truck Series, and all Kyle Busch has to do is start (which, of course, he will) in the Nationwide Series. The former completes its season with Friday’s Ford 200, and the latter closes down after Saturday’s Ford 300.

Mark Martin will have to gain 109 points on Johnson to win the Cup championship in the (predictably) Ford 400, and that’s about as likely as the Buffalo Bills coming back to make the NFL playoffs.

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MEANS SOMETHING HERE–No Ford driver has won the championship since Kurt Busch in 2004, and it won’t happen this year either, but Roush Fenway Racing has claimed the last five Ford 400s.

Greg Biffle won the season finale in 2004, ‘05 and ‘06. Matt Kenseth won in ‘07 and Carl Edwards in ‘08. Jack Roush has been the owner of six Homestead winners overall.

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TRACK HISTORY— Homestead-Miami Speedway hosted its first race in what is now the Nationwide Series in 1995. The now-Sprint Cup Series made its first visit in 1999, and the track began hosting the final races in all three touring series in 2002.

The track has always been 1.5 miles, but it opened as a track with four distinct turns, similar to Indianapolis Motor Speedway but shorter. Those four turns, laid out in a smaller space, created turning angles deemed dangerous, and the turns were rounded when the track was reconfigured for the first time prior to inclusion on the Cup schedule.

The banking of the turns was changed - tapered from 18 degrees on the bottom to 20 at the top - in 2003.

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ROOM AT THE TOP–Hendrick Motorsports drivers Johnson, Martin and Jeff Gordon have combined to win 13 races. Tony Stewart, whose team derives its chassis and engines from Hendrick, has won five more.

Combined, that’s 51.4 percent of the races to date.

The biggest casualty of Hendrick-Chevy domination has been Roush Fenway Racing, whose victory total has plummeted from 11 in 2008 to three so far this year.

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This season has yielded some good surprises. Juan Pablo Montoya has had a break through season, earning a Chase berth; David Reutimann has had some strong runs and his first win; and at age 50 Mark Martin has proven age doesn’t need to be a factor. Another guy making moves, perhaps a little under the radar, is V8 SuperCar Champion Marcos Ambrose.

In his first full time Cup Series season Ambrose and crew chief Frank Kerr have four top-fives and seven top-10s. While he was strong at both road course races this season (third at Sonoma and second at Watkins Glen), Ambrose and Kerr have shown versatility across the schedule. He finished 10th and third at Bristol, fourth at Talladega, sixth at both Richmond and Daytona and 11th at Atlanta and Texas.

While his rookie season has certainly not been without its challenges, Ambrose only has two DNFs (to his credit those were thanks to engine failures) and sits 18th in points.

Prior to this season Ambrose has two full seasons in the Nationwide Series, where he claimed his first NASCAR win (Watkins Glen ‘08), and one partial season in the Camping World Truck Series. While the past three seasons have been average for a driver moving through the NASCAR ranks, his career prior is anything but.

Tasmanian-born Ambrose began his career running go-karts in Tasmania and Australia. At age 20 Ambrose left for England to compete in Formula Ford in preparation for a career in Formula One. After winning the European Formula Ford Championship in 1999, he did a stint in Formula Three. Unfortunately for Ambrose the money ran out and he returned to Australia in 2000.

He was signed in 2001 to run the popular Australian V8 Supercar Series. After winning the Rookie of the Year title in ‘01 Ambrose went on to score back-to-back Championships in 2003 and 2004. Following the 2005 season, Ambrose announced he was making the move to NASCAR.

After just four seasons in NASCAR, Ambrose is proving every week why he deserves to be where he’s at. He’s consistently solid at any number of tracks and genuinely a good guy (though Kyle Busch might have something to say about Ambrose on track).

While there is still work to be done for Ambrose to consistently compete up front, I think this team is right on the cusp. Ambrose and Frankie Kerr work well together and Ambrose is in good equipment from Michael Waltrip Racing. With Reutimann, Waltrip and soon to be quasi-teammate Martin Truex, the team also has a lot of great support.

While Ambrose may not get the press of some his counterparts, I think this is a team to watch. I don’t know about you but I’m excited to see what they can do in 2010.

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Jimmie Johnson celebrates winning the Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 on Sunday, his seventh victory of 2009. Overall, he’s won 18 Chase races. (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

- Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin have competed in 265 races together. Martin has scored 108 more points (the current margin separating the two) than Johnson in nine of them. The most recent, of course, was at Texas on Nov. 8.

- Career victory No. 47 puts Jimmie Johnson one ahead of Buck Baker and one behind Herb Thomas. He’s in 13th place all-time.

- All Kyle Busch has to do to wrap up the title is start the Nationwide Series finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Ron Hornaday Jr. has already wrapped up his record fourth championship in the Camping World Truck Series.

- Johnson won for the fourth time at Phoenix International Raceway. No one else has won at the Desert Mile more than twice.

- While Jeff Burton was closing in a bit on Johnson late in the Checker O’Reilly 500, he was realistic afterwards. "We were catching him, but Johnson has a way of finding a little extra when he needs it. I’m sure the final three or four laps that he knew the margin he had," he said.

- This is the third time Johnson has won four or more races in the Chase. His career total of Chase victories is 18.

- Ford drivers have won the past five Homestead races. Greg Biffle won three in a row (2004-06), followed by Matt Kenseth in 2007 and Carl Edwards last year. Coincidentally, it’s billed as Ford Championship Weekend.

- Homestead-Miami Speedway is the only Sprint Cup track where Jeff Gordon has never won.

- Kurt Busch led the first 52 laps at Phoenix. Johnson then led 238 of the remaining 260.

- The Cup season finale is one of three races held in the State of Florida. NASCAR history is dotted with the names of Sunshine State natives like Fireball Roberts, Lee Roy Yarbrough, Marshall Teague, Joe Nemechek and David Reutimann.

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Jimmie Johnson jumped into the Sprint Cup points standings lead after winning Sunday’s Cup race with Mark Martin and Juan Pablo Montoya in hot pursuit. There are only five races left in the 2009 Chase, and with Lowe’s Motor Speedway this week, there’s a telling fact ahead. The points leader leaving Charlotte has gone on to win the championship three times in the past five years.

It falls to Homestead-Miami Speedway to close the NASCAR season with its Ford Championship Weekend, but a key checkpoint in the Chase for the Sprint Cup occurs this weekend at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

The Charlotte-area track hosts the fifth of 10 Chase races. The halfway point may not signal a champion, but it certainly signals the beginning of a winnowing-out process in which several drivers are eliminated, as a practical matter, from contention.

The winner of the (now) NASCAR Banking 500 has never won the Sprint Cup championship during the year of his victory since the Chase was implemented in 2004. However, the point leader leaving Charlotte has gone on to win the championship three times in five years.

Kurt Busch went on to win the first Chase after leading at the halfway point. Tony Stewart was tied for first with Jimmie Johnson after the fifth race in 2005, and Johnson won the championship a year ago after leaving Charlotte with the edge.

In an odd coincidence, Johnson won this race in each of the two years he did not win the championship (2004-05) and won the championship in the three seasons in which he did not win the fall race at LMS.

Johnson’s timing seems exquisite. He enters the NASCAR Banking 500 with his first point lead of the season, but his edge, 12 points, is tenuous. Will he leave Charlotte with the lead? More importantly, will he then go on to become the fourth Chase champion to win the title after leading at the halfway point? That remains to be seen, of course.

"Right now we’re in a great position, but it’s way too early to start thinking about other things," said Johnson, after winning the Pepsi 500 at Auto Club Speedway. "I mean, we love where we’re at. We love the fact that we’re in the points lead.

"Right now, it’s early enough to where we can kind of brush it off and say OK, we did what we needed to. Let’s go to Charlotte. As we get closer to the end, there is no doubt it’s going to ratchet up, but right now … we did all we could."

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