Viewer's Guide: H'stead

The Chase for the Nextel Cup concludes this weekend with the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and ESPN on ABC will have live coverage of the event beginning at 3 p.m. ET Sunday with NASCAR Countdown. The green flag is set for 4 p.m. ET.

Defending champ and series leader Jimmie Johnson will be going for his fifth consecutive victory as he tries to hold off four-time Cup champ Jeff Gordon for the series title.

Q&A with ESPN analyst Andy Petree

Q: If you were Jimmie Johnson's crew chief this weekend, how would you approach the race?

Petree: You've got a real choice to make. Do you try and carry on the momentum and win the fifth in a row, because to me that's a big deal. But you've got an 86-point lead and how foolish would you look if you went out there and were aggressive and lost it? It's a tough question and a tough decision. I would go for that win. These are special times and they don't come along that often. As Jimmie said after the race at Phoenix, to win five first you have to win four. It's hard to get to this point. Winning five in a row would be some history to close out the season.

Q: Even though Homestead is shaped differently, is the setup similar to what NASCAR teams use for the other 1.5-mile tracks?

Petree: The setups will be very similar and the speeds are very similar even though the track layouts look a lot different because you've got the dogleg at Texas and Atlanta. But you still have the same basic setup. What you've got to have at those tracks is a big downforce setup. You're trying to get the front end of the car as low as possible, the rear of the car as high as possible, and then try to maximize grip while doing that.

Q: What makes Homestead-Miami Speedway unique?

Petree: Variable banking is the one thing that stands out at Homestead, depending upon which line you run. You'll see guys search around the racetrack, and you see that at Atlanta and Charlotte and Texas. I think that's what makes racing on these mile-and-a-halfs great is when you can race on the bottom of the racetrack to the top. That's why they redesigned the track at Homestead, to enhance side-by-side racing, and it worked right off the bat."

Busch Series race on ESPN2

On Saturday afternoon, ESPN2 concludes its season-long coverage of the Busch Series with the Ford 300 beginning at 4 p.m. ET with NASCAR Countdown. The green flag is set for 4:45 p.m. ET.

Online fans can watch the Busch Series live race broadcast from Homestead on NASCAR.COM. To learn more, click here.

NASCAR on ESPN to put capper on return

With 52 race telecasts and more than two dozen practice and qualifying shows, as well as a daily news and information program, ESPN has had a busy return to NASCAR in 2007.

ESPN executive vice president of content, John Skipper, said the network has seen positive results from its return to NASCAR.

"As we've said from the beginning, our multi-platform approach means success for us goes beyond TV ratings," Skipper said. "NASCAR has been a highly rated addition for ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC."

More than 122 million people have watched NASCAR on ESPN this year, and ABC's Sunday afternoon races have rated more than five times higher among key male and adult demos than the programming that was in the same time slots last year. "We did attract new, younger fans to the sport, and new fans in some major markets like New York," Skipper said.

ESPN's coverage of NASCAR has been the most technologically advanced motorsports coverage in television history, including the first use of high definition in-car cameras as well as the introduction of the DISH Tech Center and the ESPN Draft Tracker special effect.

"Covering NASCAR all season has been an enormous undertaking and operation," Skipper said. "We've brought innovation to the production, and some fresh and diverse voices to NASCAR which provided fresh perspectives.

"Of course we're not satisfied but we're bullish about NASCAR's growth, and we're in this for eight years. We're already hard at work on NASCAR for next year." (Continued)