The NASCAR Nationwide Series will be a part of the three day champion’s weekend, at the Florida based Homestead-Miami Speedway, with Saturday’s running of the Ford 300. The series’ championship points standings appears to be in a lock down mode. However the Owner’s Points title and Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors are still very much up for grabs.
THE STORY BREAKDOWN
Ricky Stenhouse Jr is in good shape to wrap up the 2011 Nationwide Series championship this Saturday for Roush Fenway Racing. He goes into Saturday’s race with a healthy lead of 41 points over Elliott Sadler. Stenhouse can officially clinch his first NASCAR national championship with a 37th place finish or better in the Ford 300. He can also clinch the title with a 38th place finish with the single bonus point for leading a lap or 39th after the bonus point for leading the most laps in the race.
Sadler’s championship hopes literally hit the wall last weekend at Phoenix following a late race accident. His only hope for delivering the title to his team, Kevin Harvick Inc, is an unforeseen miracle involving Stenhouse’s car.
It’s a completely different story with the Nationwide Series’s coveted Owner’s Championship. Joe Gibbs Racing, (JGR), and their #18 team, leads the standings going into Saturday’s season finale but it’s only have a one point lead over the #60 Ford from Roush Fenway Racing, (RFR).
The Gibbs team can clinch the owner’s title outright with a win on Saturday. The Roush team needs to gain one or more points on Gibbs for them to wrap up the title. If they can make that happen it will mark RFR’s fourth, consecutive, owner’s title which will also be a new series record.
With this championship battle so close, there’s also the possibility of a tie between the two teams at the end of the race. Both teams have eight wins this year. That means the tie breaker will be second place finishes. RFR has nine runner up finishes to JGR’s five and that means Roush Fenway will win the title.
Carl Edwards is the RFR driver who has created these very impressive stats. He’s a previous race winner at Homestead-Miami after winning the 2008 event. Edwards also has a lengthy list of strong runs that has created an impressive average finish ratio of 5.7 at the track.
The JGR stats were created by Kyle Busch who won the 2009 and 2010 races at Homestead-Miami. Busch will not be in the #18 Toyota this Saturday and will be replaced by fellow JGR Cup driver Denny Hamlin. This move was reportedly at the request of the team’s primary sponsor, Z Line Designs, and was another side effect from Busch’s questionable on track behavior during a NASCAR Truck Series race at Texas. Hamlin has driven in Nationwide Series events in the past at Homestead-Miami and has a 13.2 average finish ratio.
Also way too close to call is the Nationwide Series’ Sunoco Rookie of the Year title. Ryan Truex leads the rookie standings with 188 points but it’s only three points ahead of Timmy Hill and Blake Koch who are tied for second. The really interesting aspect here is the fact that Truex is not entered in Saturday’s race and that provides Hill and Koch the opportunity to settle the rookie title between themselves. However, let’s not overlook the possibility that unforeseen circumstances involving these two drivers could actually give the rookie title to the absent Truex.
THE RACE BREAKDOWN
The Ford 300 is 200 laps/300 miles around the Homestead-Miami Speedway’s 1.5 mile oval.
The race has 48 entries vying for the 43 starting positions. 19 of those entries are on the go or go home list meaning they are not guaranteed an automatic starting position because they are currently outside of the Nationwide Series’ top 30 in owner’s points. These teams will have to rely on qualifying speeds to earn a berth in the race. The lone exception here is Joe Nemechek who can use a past champion’s provisional to make the race.
The Ford 300 will be broadcast live by the ESPN2 Network with the pre-race show beginning at 4 pm eastern time.
