{"id":9128,"date":"2014-11-12T11:37:50","date_gmt":"2014-11-12T19:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=9128"},"modified":"2014-11-12T11:38:05","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T19:38:05","slug":"who-will-be-the-new-nascar-sprint-cup-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/who-will-be-the-new-nascar-sprint-cup-champion\/","title":{"rendered":"Who will be the new NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Quicken<\/a><\/p>\n

Well if NASCAR wanted to generate interest in their major league Sprint Cup Series, they got it.\u00a0 This weekend\u2019s Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway comes down to four candidates, some unlikely, to claim their first premier championship.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leading the pack is Kevin Harvick in his Stewart-Haas Chevrolet, who has the most momentum rolling into South Florida.\u00a0 He won convincingly in Phoenix, edging out Jeff Gordon who \u00a0lost his chance to compete for the championship by a single point.<\/p>\n

Everyone thought mistakes would be the deciding factor in promoting four drivers to the ultimate competition. \u00a0But in the end, it just boiled down to plain good racing.\u00a0 The only sure spot is finishing first.\u00a0 Running second, third or fourth does you no good.<\/p>\n

\"Quicken<\/a><\/p>\n

Joining Harvick in the Sunshine State for Championship week is Denny Hamlin driving the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Joey Logano as the Ford flag waver for Team Penske, and Ryan Newman giving Richard Childress Racing their first championship hopes since Dale Earnhardt won the Cup \u00a020 years ago.<\/p>\n

Now it all comes down to one race at the mile and a half Homestead-Miami Speedway and Harvick feels he\u2019s ready for his first Sprint Cup championship with a team that was nonexistent a year ago at Stewart-Haas Racing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a decent test at Homestead,\u201d said Harvick, who has recorded two second place finishes at the Florida track. \u201cWe\u2019ll go back to the shop and talk about what we thought about our test and things we need to work on.\u00a0 The guys in our engineering department will come up with a good baseline setup.\u00a0 We have a lot to draw from having the other seven cars of Stewart-Haas and Hendrick Motorsports.\u00a0 Hopefully we can unload down there and start off on the right track.\u00a0 It\u2019s a tough ole racetrack, so the groove is going to be right up against the wall and hard to pass.\u00a0 We have to qualify well for a good pit spot and do all things we need to put us in a position to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Quicken<\/a><\/p>\n

After all the raw emotion \u00a0displayed at Texas Motor Speedway\u2019s pit road a couple of weeks ago, it shouldn\u2019t come as any surprise that Ryan Newman drove through Kyle Larson knowing he had to pass him or else it was over for the year.\u00a0 Newman made a dive move underneath Larson and roughed him up \u00a0on the white-flag lap, and gaining a shot at the grand prize.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was tough,\u201d said a satisfied Newman.\u00a0 \u201cI had to do everything I possibly could.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t proud of having to drive him (Larson) that way into the last corner on the last lap.\u00a0 There\u2019s a man (Earnhardt) upstairs who have done the very exact same thing.\u00a0 I\u2019m happy we made it to the next round.\u00a0 This is a chance for a dream come true\u201d<\/p>\n

Team Penske driver, Joey Logano, struggled mightily in Phoenix and had to wait for his opportunity came to get back on the lead lap. His team will be taking the same strategy into Homestead-Miami Speedway this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of emotions, when the No. 4 car laps you. You don\u2019t know how the race is going to play out,\u201d said Logano, the youngest of Sprint\u2019s Cup Final Four at the age of 23.\u00a0 \u201cYou don\u2019t know if you\u2019re going to get enough cautions or if you going to get the Lucky Dog or will you get the Lucky Dog pass.\u00a0 When you go a lap down, it\u2019s not a day ender, but it makes your race a lot harder.\u00a0 We had a decent car.\u00a0 When you\u2019re trying to work your way through the field and racing really hard, you burn your stuff up too much and you get in trouble.\u00a0 All we could do is work our way back, slowly, but surely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin\u2019s resurgence after failing to make the Chase last year must have put a spur underneath him for 2014.\u00a0 He\u2019s fought hard and driven dedicated to get back to this point and now he\u2019s just a race away.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all we can do is give ourselves a shot,\u201d said Hamlin, the defending Homestead champion.\u00a0 \u201cAnything can happen in a one race playoff.\u00a0 We just hope things fall our way.\u00a0 You have to execute, and you have to go through the due process of running 300 or 400 miles, and this week is going to be no exception.\u00a0 It’s going to be whoever executes a flawless day is going to be the champion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Quicken<\/a><\/p>\n

Coverage of the Ford EcoBoost 400 in on ESPN with a two hour prerace Countdown show that starts at 1 p.m. EST and the green flag falling at 3:15 p.m. for 267 laps at the Homestead-Miami Speedway.<\/p>\n

Photos\u00a0courtesy of NASCAR Media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well if NASCAR wanted to generate interest in their major league Sprint Cup Series, they got it. This weekend\u2019s Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway comes down to four candidates, some unlikely, to claim their first premier championship.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3470],"tags":[1531,1529,1528,127,1527,1530],"class_list":["post-9128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-joey-logano","tag-kevin-harvick","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-sprint-cup","tag-ryan-newman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/14JeffGordonMEDIAPHOTO-feat.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-2ne","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9128"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9148,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9128\/revisions\/9148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}