Cup Numbers: Homestead

As By the Numbers heads toward the ol' Homestead in 2007, the season finale has us locked in on four drivers: one who is about to celebrate a second Nextel Cup championship; one who can become the first driver to have 30 top-10s in a season since NASCAR expanded the current schedule to 36 races in 2001; one who has been ushered in and out of Victory Lane at Homestead-Miami Speedway for a mini, pre-Chase celebration three consecutive years; and one who has one last chance to keep a streak intact in the final race he will make for his legendary father's team.

• Jimmie Johnson: The magic number for the reigning champ to successfully defend his title is 18. A top-18 finish secures another trophy for Johnson and the 48 team. Johnson has finished worse than 18th seven times this season, the last coming in August at Bristol.

Since, Johnson has won six of his season- and career-high 10 races and shows no signs of slowing down with four consecutive victories a testament to his unwillingness to settle for anything less despite the ramifications that lie ahead if something would go wrong.

A win Sunday in the Ford 400 would make Johnson the first Cup champion to win the season finale in the Chase era. He would also become the first driver in the Modern Era to win five races in a row and just the third in the history of NASCAR: Bobby Allison and Richard Petty each accomplished the feat in 1971; Petty (1967) is the only driver to do it twice.

Johnson has finished worse than 18th at Homestead twice in six races including a crash in 2005 that ended his hopes of catching points leader Tony Stewart and dropped him from second to fifth in the final standings. But that seems like a forever ago for Johnson, who finished ninth there last year and has a 14.5 average finish at HMS.

• Jeff Gordon: About the only way for Gordon to beat Johnson for the Cup is for someone to steal the keys of the 48; and these cars, of course, don't have keys. The 86-point deficit Gordon faces in the largest heading into the final race of the Chase era.

Gordon, as you probably are already aware, has "out-pointed" Johnson by more than 86 points on four occasions this season.

Gordon is having his best year since that unbelievable season of 1998, when he won 13 times and finished with 26 top-fives in 33 races. Only five times did he fail to finish with a top-10.

In 2007, simply amassing top-10s isn't enough. He has six more than the next closest drivers, Johnson and Stewart. But Johnson has as many top-fives (20) and four more victories than does Gordon. Gordon has an 11.5 average finish at Homestead with six top-10s in eight starts. This year, it appears, that just isn't enough. (Continued)