Here we are folks, the season finale is this weekend after 35 hard-fought races and a ton of twists and turns (excuse the pun) along the way. The Championship Four have gotten all the practice they are going to get and now it’s simply down to who runs the fastest and who has the best adjustments during the last 400 miles of the season at the south Florida track.
Homestead-Miami has been the championship track for the last several years and it is the only race that gets run there in each series from trucks to Xfinity to Cup. There are a few things similar to other tracks here in the distance, a 1.5-mile layout, that’s the most common across the schedule, the banking of 18-20 degrees fits pretty well with several other tracks and the progressive banking does as well. That’s it though. It is an oval track meaning it has two straightaways and two sets of corners but there aren’t any turns in front stretch like you’d see at a tri-oval and quad-oval. The tire wear here is possibly even more than what occurs at Atlanta all the way back in the second race of the year, and a track that is known to be vicious on tires. At practice on Saturday, cars were losing four seconds of lap time over 30-35 lap runs. That’s insane.
The other thing that makes it different than other 1.5-mile tracks, well different from most, is that driving the high line on the track is the fastest way around the oval. Getting as close as possible to the wall is where the best grip and lap times can be found, generally. There are those drivers that will try their darnedest to make the bottom work which is where the race will likely ultimately be won, but during the middle of the proceedings, right up against the wall will be the dominant groove. Passing can be hard here even though the bottom is the shorter way around the track, it doesn’t carry as much momentum so getting drive off the corners is tougher and therefore completing a pass can be as well. Eleven of 19 previous winners here have started in the top-five which is evidence to my previous point.
The race distance of 400 miles means there are 267 laps run however it is a track that actually doesn’t lend itself to long-run speed as it gets later in the race. In the last several races, the closing green flag stretch has been no longer than 34 laps, which is inside of one pit window and was about as long as drivers were doing for “long runs” during practice on Saturday. Those cars that don’t take quite as long to get up to speed are the ones that will be players late in the race if their pit crews can get them the position they need.
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