Something is different. It's the last race of the 2010 Sprint Cup season, and Jimmie Johnson isn't the runaway favorite on the NASCAR odds board. The four-time and defending Cup champion is 15 points behind Denny Hamlin in the driver's standings, leaving Hamlin atop the futures market at 5-8 to take his first title. Johnson is 7-5, followed by Kevin Harvick (46 points behind Hamlin) at 9-1. None of the other nine drivers in the Chase can win.
But there's still a race to be run, and all 43 cars on the grid at Sunday's Ford 400 (1:00 p.m. ET, ESPN) will be eligible to take the checkered flag. Homestead-Miami Speedway is the host venue, a 1.5-mile oval track that debuted on the Cup circuit in 1999 and has been reconfigured a number of times to make it more NASCAR-friendly. Johnson usually does very well on 1.5-mile tracks. This is not one of those tracks; he has zero victories in nine trips to Miami, finishing in the Top 5 on three occasions.
There's more to those numbers than meets the eye. For the past four years, Johnson has taken a considerable lead in the Cup standings into the final race of the season. His goal at Homestead has been more to remain in one piece than to win. That all changes on Sunday. Johnson will have to put the pedal down this time, and the NASCAR betting market is giving him the benefit of the doubt as the 5-1 co-favorite alongside Hamlin to win the Ford 400.
Hamlin should be very confident taking his talents to South Beach. He finished in first place at last year's Ford 400 and has cracked the Top 5 in three of the last four races at Homestead. He's also been the hottest driver on the Sprint Cup circuit this month, winning at Martinsville and Texas before nearly putting the Cup out of reach last week in Phoenix. Hamlin led most of that race before having to pit for gas with only 14 laps to go. Johnson performed well in each of the last seven events, but with zero victories.
Harvick's chances of taking home anything from Sunday are pretty slim. He's being given a fighting chance at 7-1 to win the race itself, but Harvick has yet to tame Homestead after nine visits, finishing second in 2008 and third in 2009. He might actually have a better chance of winning the Cup. Harvick has an average finish of 8.4 at Homestead, making it his best track on the circuit in that regard. That's better than both Hamlin (10.6) and Johnson (12.7).
There is one Sprint Cup driver who's outperformed them all. Carl Edwards (6.5) is fourth in the Cup standings and the third favorite to win Sunday's event at 13-2 after taking the checkered flag in Phoenix. Edwards won the Ford 400 in 2008 and placed seventh last year, both times in the No. 99 Ford Fusion for Roush Fenway Racing. This was the top team in NASCAR not long ago; 2010 didn't look very promising for a while, but Roush has picked up the pace of late with the new FR-9 engine under the hood. Joining Edwards among the contenders to do Ford proud on Sunday are teammates Greg Biffle (a three-time winner at 7-1) and Matt Kenseth (the 2007 winner at 18-1).
This is very much a "what have you done for me lately" kind of sport. Johnson's Hendrick Motorsports team kicked Roush from the top of the NASCAR mountain, as Chevrolet proved to have superior technology to Ford. Then Hamlin's Joe Gibbs Racing team started heating up this year, their third since switching from Chevy to Toyota. Now Ford is making noise again. Outsiders rarely cash in on the Cup circuit, but Roush's David Ragan (60-1) could be worth a flier in this situation. He's raced three times at Homestead, finishing as high as 10th in 2007.
Hendrick drivers Mark Martin (16-1), Jeff Gordon (18-1) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (50-1) will presumably be working to help Johnson secure his fifth championship. Meanwhile, Hamlin can count on the support of Kyle Busch (8-1) and Joey Logano (28-1), the latter doing very well of late with three consecutive Top 3 results. We hope you enjoy what should be an exciting showdown for the Cup, and we'll see you at Daytona in February.
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