Is this the year HMS finally wins at Homestead?

The flow of ifs, ands and buts has been reduced to a trickle as the Cup season heads toward an official end this weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway. And the flow of uncertainty is shut down altogether when it comes to which team owner will win this year's championship.

Rick Hendrick has that deal bagged.

But there was still a little bit of drama around the Hendrick Motorsports campus in Charlotte the past couple days -- would the championship-banquet tuxedos from last year still fit and could the team get its first win at Homestead?

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The numbers don't favor the latter of those two uncertainties. But there is something else that would very much favor a victory for a Hendrick car in Sunday's Ford 400: This season has been a Rick Hendrick production from the start and a lot of people in the shops on Papa Joe Hendrick Boulevard are determined to see that it ends that way.

"He," Alan Gustafson, crew chief for Mark Martin, said of Hendrick, "is willing to put himself second time and time and time again for his company and for his people, and we all sincerely appreciate that, and we want to return the favor to him because he treats us so well. He's just a great guy and somebody you will do anything for because he will treat you the same way."

It's hard to believe a Hendrick driver has never won at Homestead. During the 10 years that racing has been held at the track, Hendrick cars have won 103 Cup races. The team has won four championships during that time and after Sunday, that number will be five. Only points leader Jimmie Johnson and second-place Martin remain mathematically eligible to win the 2009 Chase and all Johnson must do is finish 25th and he wins regardless of what Martin does.

But since the track opened in 1999, Hendrick cars are winless within the pastel confines of Homestead.

The best any of the current Hendrick drivers has finished at Homestead is second -- once each by Johnson and Martin -- and only Jeff Gordon has a sub-10th-place average finish.

Johnson, remarkably, has a much better average finish in the final point standings (2.4) during his seven full seasons in Cup than he does at Homestead (13.6).

What is up with that?

"Well," his crew chief, Chad Knaus said this week, "I think if you look at it, we've had obviously both scenarios play out there. We've had races that we've had to win to try to win the championship, we've had races that we needed to go in there and just be protective and try to make sure we didn't lose it. So I think that we haven't hit on exactly what it is that we need there."

But you have got to believe the odds -- with an assist from Hendrick horsepower and brain power -- are going to change the situation and soon.

Perhaps, on Sunday. (Continued)