After three weeks of smack talk, Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards took their championship battle to Homestead-Miami Speedway for the season's final race. A mere three points separated the two leaders and there was only one scenario that would ensure either of them the title: Win the race.Easy enough right? Stewart won Homestead back in 1999 and Edwards had won the past two events at the South Florida speedway.
The two contenders would go head to head all night long, swapping the lead back and forth. But it was clear the driver known simply as "Smoke" had the superior car and, in the end, he was out front when it mattered and was able to net his second Homestead win and his third Cup Series title.
All week long (well really since Martinsville) Stewart and Edwards traded barbs, trying to psych each other out. Stewart later compared it to "picking on a kid" because Edwards was "too nice to fight back." Before the green flag, Stewart said he wanted to get (crew chief) Darian Grubb and (team co-owner) Gene Haas their first championships and "call me greedy but, the Hell with it, I want three of 'em!"
There could not have been two more opposite drivers than Edwards and Stewart to go after the title. In addition to being a great driver, Edwards is a gregarious pitchman and has been accused by some as being "phony" because of his PR skills. Stewart is much simpler. What you see is what you get. He's real, he refuses to put on a fake face for the media and he only races to win.
The race went green most of the way, aside from a wreck on the backstretch and an hour long rain delay at halfway, but it was not without stress for Stewart's No. 14 team.
When Kurt Busch blew his transmission out early in the race, a piece when through Stewart's grille and somehow didn't go through the radiator. Smoke brought his Chevy to pit road and his crew quickly went about the repairs. They also were forced to put tape on his left-front fender after he made contact with the rear of David Reutimann's car on the next restart.
Stewart continue to scoff at Edwards on his radio, saying the No. 99 crew was "going to feel like sh*t after we kick their asses after this." While this may sound arrogant to some, Stewart said following the race "It's not cocky if you can back it up." And that is exactly what he did.
The No. 14 team also had two late pit stops in a row go wrong, the crew had lug nut trouble both times, which caused Stewart to lose a bunch of positions. Grubb also tried to work a controversial strategy where Smoke had to save fuel to make it on one less stop than Edwards' No. 99. Had a late race rain shower not come right after Stewart pitted, they would have most likely not won the championship.
But it wasn't the adversity or the pit strategy that made this race as spectacular as it was (although it didn't hurt). It was Tony Stewart's grit and determination that stole the show.
All totaled, Stewart passed 118 cars in the Ford 400 Sunday night. Every time he was put back in the pack, he raced his way back to the front. He knew how strong Edwards' Ford was and he knew the only way to score his third title was to win the race.
On every restart, Smoke made it two, sometimes three, wide into turn one. He wasted no time in making up every position he could. At one point, he even went four-wide down the frontstrech, passing two cars before they even got to turn one. This proves that Stewart not only had a superior car to Edwards, but that he also wanted it more than Edwards did.
Stewart did what he'd set out to do and won the race and, for the first time in Nascar history, the championship was decided by a tiebreaker. Stewart won five races while Edwards won one. So Tony Stewart is your 2011 Sprint Cup Series champion. He is the first driver to win the final race and the title since 1988 and the first owner-driver to win the title since Alan Kulwiki in 1992. He's also the only driver to win a Winston Cup, a Nextel Cup and a Sprint Cup.
This championship was made all the more special by the fact that Stewart was driving the No. 14 made famous by his childhood hero, the great A.J. Foyt.
The fans saw one helluva show Sunday night. They also saw some of, if not, the best racing of the season. The race Sunday was the kind of event that creates new fans and gets them hooked like the longtime ones. The moves Stewart made on the track, the determination in his voice on the radio, the pep in his step all through the weekend, just prove what everyone who watches Nascar, every week or casually, already knows: Tony Stewart is one of the best to ever wheel a racecar, in any series.
Yes Edwards is a great "driver," but Stewart is a great "racer." Edwards is great with the marketing and media frills that come with driving nowadays, but Smoke only drives to win races. All the media relations stuff is merely a chore. He has won races and championships in
everything he has ever driven (Nascar, IndyCar and USAC Midgets, Sprints and Silver Crowns) and this year won half of the Chase races. Not even Jimmie Johnson has done that. For the first time in five years, a racecar driver won the championship.
There are only 92 days until the 2012 Daytona 500 kicks off the next exciting season of Nascar racing. After all the close racing an surprise winners we've seen this year it's going to be tough to close the door on it. The Chase and the new point system have definitely done what they were supposed to do. How next year can top this one is beyond me, but if it's anything like what we saw in 2011, it's going to be a great ride.
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