Lest there be any doubt about the importance of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series championship-crowning season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 16 (3 p.m. ET, ESPN), consider that 15 drivers – including seven of the eight Chase drivers (Ryan Newman is the exception) representing most of NASCAR’s powerhouse teams from Hendrick Motorsports to Team Penske to Stewart-Haas Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing are in South Florida testing at the 1.5-mile track Tuesday and Wednesday.
The next time these drivers show up in the Sunshine State, four of them will be vying for the Sprint Cup championship in a one-race showdown at Homestead. And first of those four across the finish line hoists the big hardware.
Championships have been decided here before, but never like this.
"You have to enter Homestead with the expectation that you need to win the race to win the championship and we have two cars and teams who are in the hunt for that," said Penske’s Brad Keselowski on Tuesday during a lunch break at the track. "It’s really a very, very critical test not just for us, but for all the teams.
"I look forward to coming back here because three of the last four times [here] we’ve celebrated a championship in some form whether it was Cup or Nationwide."
There are still two more races left – including this week’s stop at Texas Motor Speedway — to decide which four drivers will advance to the Championship Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup at Homestead-Miami. But clearly teams realize the significance of this one race and are putting in a focused effort toward success here.
"You have to execute the next couple races first, but that’s why you see so many cars testing here. It all comes down to Homestead," said Penske’s Joey Logano, who is ranked third among the eight Chase drivers.
"Making sure you have a fast car here is important. That’s going to be the difference in winning the championship or not. Most likely, you’re going to have to win here to win the championship this year, or come close to it."
Playing it safe, doesn’t appear to be an option.
"All the cars are fast but we want to be the fastest of the fast," said Keselowski, who is seventh in the Chase standings. "For us, that’s the key thing for us here today. You can’t really practice pit stops or restarts. What we’re looking for when we test is one element of the weekend, how much raw speed does you car have.
"Speed is the building block for a successful winning team and the most definitive way to find that speed is what we’re doing here with testing."
His Chase competitor Jeff Gordon — who ranks first among the eight Eliminator Round drivers following a runner-up showing at Martinsville last week — is taking a similar approach.
"It’s all about speed, having a car that handles well," said Gordon, who won the Homestead race in 2012 as Keselowski was being crowned Sprint Cup champion.
"This is a very challenging race track especially in the heat of the day. It’s slick and hard to get a hold of and difficult to get the balance right. … we’ve had some good cars here the last couple of years and want to simulate that [in testing] and hope we’re in the battle for the championship when we come back here and hope we have a car that can win the race."
Gordon is joined at the test by his Hendrick teammate and Sunday’s Martinsville winner, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Since Earnhardt was eliminated from the Chase, he is multitasking this week at the test.
"We’re in a different situation than Jeff, so we split the test in half," Earnhardt said.
"We’re working on 2015 [package] today and 2014 package this evening and all day tomorrow. We feel like we had a good car here last year and we’re just trying to learn a few more things. Hopefully come out of here satisfied and good shape for the race."
The drivers acknowledged the elevated intensity level created by this new Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship elimination format and expect it to increase exponentially by next month’s Ford EcoBoost 400.
Even those like Earnhardt now looking in at the title run from the outside say there is a tangible case of nerves of in the garage every race weekend.
"With the way the Chase is, basically every race is so critical and you’ve go to get a top-five or win in every event," Earnhardt said. "Talking to other drivers I think there’s a sense of anxiety and nerves over trying to continue and get into next round that we didn’t have before. That sort of shows up in what you see out on the race track, those nerves and anxiety of getting to the next round and doing whatever you can as a team to take a spot to move forward.
"It’s really got guys scratching their heads and worried before races. There’s guys who can go out there and perform well under those circumstances and guys that spaz out and have a terrible day and spiral out of control."
Keselowski conceded he’s endured a fast-moving roller coaster ride during the Chase, experiencing bad luck like he had last week with a 31st-place finish at Martinsville, or the extreme high of pulling off a dramatic must-win at Talladega Superspeedway only the week before.
Consistency may put a driver in position for a title, but winning will likely determine the champion.
"We’re all entering the last round with the thought process you’re going to have to come here and win the race," Keselowski said. "And if that’s the case, I don’t really want to be consistent. I want to be the guy that can get hot on any given week and kinda own a race, so to speak.
"You have to count on coming here and needing to deliver a clutch performance to win and I think our teams at Team Penske have that capability."
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