Fearless Predictions: Coda

All things come to an end.

Its business first for me, as NASCAR’s top three series head into the final weekend of the 2009 season at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The final race of the Chase for the Spriont Cup is Sunday’s Ford 400 (12:15 p.m., ABC/Ch. 4). The Nationwide Series is front-and-center on Saturday with the Ford 300 (1:30 p.m., ESPN2) and Friday belongs to the Camping World Trucks in the Ford 200 (4:30 p.m., SPEED).

Is there any drama left in NASCAR this season? Hasn’t Jimmie Johnson locked up a historic fourth straight Cup title, joining Kyle Busch (Nationwide) and Ron Hornaday Jr. (Camping World Trucks)?

No quite.

Hornaday clinched his fourth truck series title last weekend at Phoenix, and Busch just needs to start the race at Homestead to secure his first-ever NASCAR championship.

But Johnson actually has some work to do on Sunday. He’s got a 108-point lead over Mark Martin — the sentimental favorite is the only other driver with a shot at the title — but don’t forget just a couple weeks ago Johnson gave up 111 points to his 50-year-old Hendrick teammate by crashing on lap 3 at Texas.

Johnson needs to finished 25th or better to clinch the title for sure; he can do worse than 25th if Martin doesn’t lead a lap, or most of the laps. Trust the TV talking heads (and probably the radio announcers, too) to keep us updated on the points situation.

To add a little more spice to the finale, Homestead is definitely not one of Johnson’s better tracks. In fact, none of Hendrick’s three Chasers have great records Homestead. None of the trio has won there and it is the only active track Jeff Gordon hasn’t gotten a victory at.

Looking at the numbers, Martin has the edge, with a 12.0 average finish (in nine races), nine top-10 finishes and a driver rating of 91.6. Compare that to Johnson’s average finish of 13.6 (8 races), seven top-10s and 87.2 rating.

So who’s the best at Homestead? Look no farther than the weekend’s major sponsor and you’ll get an idea.

Driving Fords, Roush Fenway drivers have won six of the past seven races at Homestead-Miami, and among the Chasers Carl Edwards and Gregg Biffle hold the No. 1 and No. 2 driver ratings there.

Vancouver, Wash., native Biffle has three wins at Homestead, and he has a lot of incentive to get another this Sunday as his run of six straight seasons with a victory is in jeopardy. Edwards is the defending race winner but he’s also gone winless this year.

As for the other two races, there are still plenty of things to be decided, including rookie of the year in Nationwide (Justin Allgaier or Brendan Gaughan?), the owner’s championship in the trucks (No. 51 or No. 33?) and the top-five drivers in both. Landing in the top five is important, as the TV talking heads have told us over and over, because just those drivers will get on the stage for the champion’s banquet.

One storyline you can expect the TV talking heads to beat to death during Saturday’s Nationwide race will be the ongoing feud between Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski.

As we all know by now, Hamlin and Keselowski played some bumper tag last weekend at Phoenix, with Hamlin coming out on the losing end of the deal. That led Hamlin to declare to TV and everyone that he would take care of Keselowski this weekend at Homestead.

Keselowski makes no secret of the fact that he’s an aggressive driver, and these two have some history this season, with Hamlin taking more lumps than he’s dished out.

From the replay of Phoenix that I saw, Hamlin moved Keselowski out of the grove, and the younger driver just paid him back. Unfortunately for Hamlin, the pay-back came in a turn, which led to him spinning out and falling out of contention.

Carl Edwards, who has also felt Keselowski’s bumper recently, said that the younger driver should expect other drivers to race him the way he races them. I think Keselowski does race that way.

NASCAR officials got involved and talked to Keselowski, who is moving up to the Cup series full-time next year with Penske, telling him to pick and chose his fights carefully.

At any rate, expect ESPN2 to have a camera dedicated to both drivers, which is surely a good deal for their sponsors.

My vote may go to Mike Bliss, who is back in the No. 1 for Phoenix Racing in the Nationwide finale. That’s the same No. 1 that Bliss was dumped from after the Aug. 1 race at Iowa.

Over the 13 races since losing his ride at Phoenix, Bliss drove for five different teams and did so well as a hired gun that he was able to maintain and improve his points position.

In fact, Bliss passed Allgaier to take over the all-important No. 5 spot last weekend in Phoenix. Heading into Homestead Bliss has a 14-point lead over Allgaier, who had held down the fifth position for 11 of the past 13 weeks.

Unless something completely unexpected happens, this is the end of my run at The Herald.

I’m going to try to make a go of being a freelance writer, although I’ll also be available to write toasts for weddings and bar mitzvahs. I’m still going to be interested in racing, so if you have an idea that would make for a good story, drop me a line at my new address, scott@scottwhitmore.net.

I’ve been noodling on how to do this final column for about two weeks now, and came to the conclusion that there are too many people to thank, but no orchestra to start playing if I run over or miss someone.

So let me keep it short and sweet.

Thanks, all of you.

Now that the mushy stuff is over, let’s make those final Fearless Predictions.

I like Matt Kenseth to win Sunday’s Cup race and keep Roush’s Homestead dominance going. It would also provide bookend wins for Daytona 500-winner Kenseth in the Sunshine State.

Let’s keep the Roush feeling going in the Nationwide Series, with Carl Edwards taking Saturday’s race to lock up the No. 2 spot in the points over Brad Keselowski.

For the Trucks, since I’m teary-eyed anyway, I’ll take Todd “The Onion” Bodine to repeat at Homestead.