NASCAR

NASCAR Cup Championship could come down to late restarts, tire management

Mike Hembree
Special to USA TODAY

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Sunday’s race for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway could turn on a number of variables – early accidents, blown engines, broken parts priced at a dollar costing a team millions, for examples.

Kyle Busch, right, and Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell, after Bell won the Camping World Truck Championship. Busch will vie for his second NASCAR championship Sunday at the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

 The most obvious elements in pre-race discussion, however, are late-race restarts and tire management.

If there is a late-race caution flag and more than one of the four championship candidates – Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick – remain at or near the front of the pack, chaos might be the order of the day.

That possibility was no more clearly illustrated than in last year’s finale when, with 10 laps to go, contender Carl Edwards moved to block Joey Logano on a restart. Logano didn’t lift. Both drivers careened off the track, and Jimmie Johnson went on to win the title.

“I just thought I’d clear him or force him to lift,” said Edwards, who left racing after that event. “I just thought I’d have a little more time. And that’s how it ended.”

In this high-stakes race, in which the leader of the final four at the end of the race wins the championship, the last restart – whenever it occurs -- will be critical. It’s the time to make big moves and hope for the best.

“We plan for that stuff every week,” said Cole Pearn, crew chief for Truex. “I think you look at the history of this race, and it's definitely come down to a last restart a lot of times. So many races throughout the year do, as well. So from our standpoint, you put a lot of focus on that, being able to take off and go on those restarts, and I think Martin has had a lot of good ones this year, as well. 

“We feel pretty confident if it comes down to that we'll be in good shape.”

Busch, Keselowski and Harvick are among the best in the business at late-in-the-day restarts, however. None of the contenders is likely to spare aggression with so much on the line.

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“It's all about experience, and experience on this tire, experience on this racetrack and experience in racing in general,” said Adam Stevens, Busch’s crew chief. “You've kind of got to leave it up to the drivers at that point.”

If it’s up to Truex, he knows what will happen.

“I'll wreck any damn one of these three,” he said, barely smiling. “I mean, I'm going to race these guys just like I do every single week. I have not thought about any desperation moves. I don't plan on being in that position. I think a perfect scenario is to go out there and race them heads up and beat them fair and square.”

Tires could be an issue. The Homestead surface is reasonably rough, meaning tire strength fades quickly. Teams would like to change tires at every opportunity, including during most if not all caution periods.

The scheduled allotment is 10 sets per team (down from 11 last year), however, and crew chiefs – particularly those in the Final Four – will want to conserve sets for the closing segment of the race.

“I think that means you're going to see the pit crew go a little slower and make sure you get the wheels tight and all that because you just can't have an issue,” said Keselowski. “Because remember with tire sets, you lose a set when you have a loose wheel because you have to come in and change them, and now that set's junk.  So when you don't have enough tire sets, having a loose wheel is the same as having a flat tire. So you can easily fall behind.

“With this track, the surface being as coarse as it is, tire sets make a huge difference. … So you definitely are going to have to be extremely mindful of it this weekend.”

In the three previous seasons in which the current format has been in use, each year’s champion also has won the finale – Harvick in 2014, Kyle Busch in 2015 and Johnson in 2016.