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.

"I feel like our package going into Homestead this year is probably the best that we've had yet, so I'm excited about that," Knaus said. "I think we can go in there this weekend with the aggressiveness that we need. We sat on the pole there a couple years ago. I think we can go down there and battle for the pole and hopefully get ourselves in position to race for the win.

"But you know, we're not going to do anything silly, either, to take ourselves out of contention or out of a place that we can possibly win this thing. So we're just going to have to play it by ear and hopefully we can be in a position to race for it and hopefully win this thing. It would be awesome."

No matter where his top three cars finish Sunday -- Gordon is third by 42 points over Kurt Busch -- Hendrick will come away the big winner. And he's ready for whatever happens.

"I can tell you what I'm going to do already in Homestead," he said. "I'm going to go to the loser first, then I'm going to go to the guy that finishes second. And I'm going to tell them all that [this] week so they know.

"The worst thing in the world would be if I'm doing high-fives in the pits, Jimmie broke, Mark won, these guys are going to say, 'Hey, he wanted Mark to win, anyway.' I try to give them a snapshot of I'm going to be on neutral ground. I love 'em all."

Now, about those tuxedos.

FIVE TO WATCH

Greg Biffle, No. 16: The Biff is The Man at Homestead. He has won three times there. In fact, he won three straight times (2004-06). And he drives a Ford, the car that has dominated in the swamps.

Kyle Busch, No. 18: He has yet to win at Homestead in a Cup car, and you have to imagine he would very much like to steal a bit of the attention away from the Hendrick team for which he used to drive.

Juan Montoya, No. 42: Montoya would like to win this race for two reasons. A victory on Sunday would be his first on a Sprint Cup oval and it would be in front of his adopted-hometown fans.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 88: Where to start on reasons he would like to win? Let's just say that it can't be much fun being asked why it is that all his teammates have won races this year but he has not.

Carl Edwards, No. 99: Edwards won last year's race, and you can be reasonably certain he would like to not end the season with a zero in the victory column.

TRACK CHATTER

Jimmie Johnson: "We need to show up, blinders on, focused, qualifying trim, get all that we can. We have to practice, make sure I have that car as comfortable as possible and as fast as possible, so if a caution comes out at the wrong time, we're down a lap, I can work my way back. That's the part where we just can't coast. We can't chill out. We have to stay focused and keep our heads down on the job at hand."

Kyle Busch: "You have to idolize the guy. Who can win four straight titles in this type of era? Not even Jeff Gordon could do it. It's a big deal. Those guys have really got it together and, one of these days, whoever beats them, I can't imagine if they can go five straight."

Alan Gustafson: "As far as what the 48 has that nobody else has, that's a really tough question to answer. If I could answer that, I'd be working really, really hard to figure out -- or to implement that or whatever it is. But I can tell you that they work as hard or harder than anybody else in the series consistently, and they're both at the pinnacle of the sport, both Chad and Jimmie. ... I've heard some people bring the Tiger Woods analogy into the equation, and you sit there and you think about that, and that's probably one of the best ways to summarize how good they are and have been able to be over the last four years."

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