Here we are at the end of the 2007 NASCAR season after ten months of stock car racing. I can’t imagine how the drivers or the traveling teams feel at this point, but I for one can say that I am worn out. I feel like I have been in a 700 mile race and I have only 2 laps remaining. However, as worn out as I say I am, I’ll be missing the races within 2 weeks eagerly anticipating Daytona’s early January test times.

 Perhaps my feeling of being worn out by the long season is just a matter of this week’s race in Miami not bringing any flavor to the table. The season championship is on the line and separated by a small enough amount of points that two drivers have a shot at winning the title. I should be awaiting this Miami race with the anticipation of how we all do for the Super Bowl, Game 7 of the World Series, at least when baseball used to get that far, or the World Cup Final, Men’s of course. But I don’t.

 So what does that say about the Chase format, Miami, Chevy domination, and teammates battling for the title when someone like me, who I believe it’s fair to say is an above average follower of the sport, isn’t getting psyched for Sunday’s season finale?

 Well, it’s funny that I pose the question because I have a few answers to why I’m not as pumped as I think I should be.

 The Chase: It’s a great idea on paper and I believe the media who don’t regularly follow NASCAR, like the idea; but I think for the everyday regular fan that has followed it for some time has had enough.

 The media like it because they can relate to NASCAR now in terms to what they’re used to. These are the reporters who wonder every year why NASCAR’s biggest race of the season starts the year off. The Chase makes sense to them.

 For the fan, they’re not drawn by the fact the team who worked the hardest all season can have their title taken away because someone was better over the last ten races. True, that’s how they do it in all the other sports, but NASCAR isn’t every other sport; remember, they run their best race at the beginning of the season and plenty of people liked it just the way it’s always been. Go back to the way it’s always been and put it on the ledgers as a tried event with simpler just being better.    

 Homestead-Miami: There’s nothing against Homestead or Miami, but this is the race NASCAR caps it’s season off with? Yeah, it makes sense because there is so much NASCAR history intertwined throughout with Miami. My greatest auto-racing memory from Miami was a Crockett and Tubbs car chase in a Miami Vice episode. When I think of Miami, it’s all about South Beach, Girls in small bikini’s, Cuban sandwiches, and Mojito’s. NASCAR comes last on the list of non-supported events by Miami fans of which includes the Dolphins, Hurricanes, Heat, Marlins, and Jai Lai. Can you blame them? You have sun everyday, a beach, and again, girls in bikini’s.

 Attendance figures have lagged at the speedway since it opened. Even the new faster banked configuration can’t help the sales nor can it attract any of the fans. Many NASCAR fans that travel to races all over the South treat Highway 4 as some sort of a border to another country. Daytona is about as south as their willing to go.

 The solution? Make the final race of the season at place that will have some energy. Daytona would definitely have some ####e; beginning and ending the year at the birth place of stock car racing? Yes, that definitely has some appeal. How about Las Vegas? A Saturday night race on national TV with a celebrity invite list that would beat courtside at a Lakers game? Yes, that has the glitz and flair I’d be looking for in a meaningful Championship event. I can guarantee that both venues would be sold out weeks before the event dropped the Green flag.

 Chevy Domination & Teammates battling: The battle down the stretch isn’t exactly reminding anyone of Richard Petty and David Pearson or Plymouth vs Ford. The chase down the stretch is vanilla and G-rated. It should have been expected to evolve into what it has since the competitive balance has shifted to being basically like baseball’s Yankee’s and Red Sox where the deepest pockets win. Unfortunately, just like baseball, there are only couple owners who can compete.

 Watching Gordon and Johnson battle it down the stretch is like watching Batman and Robin battle it out at ping pong with the loser going aaahhh-shux, and buying the winner a soda. They don’t dislike each other and are more polite than the Walton brothers. If it were Kyle and Kurt Busch down the stretch, now that would be fun. A chevy vs a dodge and a history between brothers that say they would run over momma for a win.

 I don’t know how NASCAR let Chevy or Hendrick get this far ahead of everyone else in the league, but if Bill France Sr. or Jr. were around they wouldn’t have stood for it.

 Along the same lines, some of things that have happened in the last few years regarding penalties and suspensions for drivers and crews just doing what NASCAR drivers and crews have always done has soured some. It has also vanillafied the sport taking away some of it’s soul that made it stand out from other sports. NASCAR has gone big time in America and is appealing to a new larger audience. Along the way they have made concessions under media scrutiny to be harsher. The appeal of NASCAR is the personalities of the drivers and how they express it on the track. It is walking a thin line between interpreting rules a certain way and being tricky enough to get away with it. The next thing you know, they’ll be trying to get away from the bootlegger history because it suggests criminal activity helped evolve NASCAR into what it is today.     

 …..and Now to stuff that actually matters Enough of the Opinions, lets get to some data that may actually assist in your final week of picking winners. The Homestead-Miami Speedway can be classed into the 1.5 mile high banked category with Las Vegas, Charlotte, Texas, and Atlanta. You can also group the Miami track with those simply because they’ll be using the ‘Car of Yesterday” which they have on all of those tracks. Unlike the Speedway MotorSports tracks that are tri-ovaled, Miami is more like a paper clip shape with two long equal drag racing straights that run right into 20 degrees of banking in the turns.  

  Since 3 of the last 5 races have come at Texas, Charlotte, and Atlanta, there will be plenty of data to go with. Or if you don’t want to go through anything, all you basically have to do is bet Jimmie Johnson, that’s all! Johnson won two of those three races and has won the last 4 races in a row, two of them in the “Car of Tomorrow” and two of them in the “Old Car”. Apparently it doesn’t matter which car Johnson goes with, he’s just better. His “Old Car” may actually have more of an edge on the competition than the COT. If you would have blindly bet $100 on Jimmie Johnson for each race at an average price of 5 to 1 all season long you would be up $3,100 with one race to go. Who needs to handicap and decipher through practice times and past history? If you just bet the 48, you get paid!

 Johnson has won 11 races and has a comfortable 86 point lead over Gordon. All Johnson has to do is finish 18th or better and regardless of what Gordon does, Johnson will win his 2nd consecutive Nextel Cup title. Meanwhile on the flip side, Jeff Gordon has now been beat 2 of the last 4 seasons out of a championship that would have been his under the old system. If NASCAR had left things alone and not try to conform to what other sports do, Gordon would be getting his 6th Cup title this year.

 If looking to play a few drivers that could beat Johnson this week, Greg Biffle might be the first driver to look at. Biffle has won the last 3 Miami races in a row and done so in impressive fashion. The parallels between Biffle’s 2006 and 2007 season into Miami are very similar. In both years Biffle had a disappointing season with only one win and struggled on 1.5 mile high banked tracks after dominating in the past. Just like this year, he isn’t considered one of the favorites to win and just like last year the probable best car, Jimmie Johnson, may just lay back and try to finish well to win a Championship.

 I'll go with a safe pick in Martin Truex Jr not because he finished 2nd in the Miami race last season, but because of how well he ran at Texas three weeks ago. He’s likely to bring the same chassis and why not, because it’ll be the last time they can use it as we say farewell to the “Car of Unsafe Yesterday”.