Ahh, Homestead...site of Greg Moore's final victory in the old CART series before his death in Fontana during the final race.

But this NASCAR, where they race with roofs and stuff so you're not interested in openwheelers...well, ignoring Messrs Montoya, Carpentier, Hornish Jr and Villeneuve I guess. Anyway, Miami has basically been Greg Biffle's personal playground the last few years so I must say I was surprised that he didn't score any points in qualifying. The main battle was whether or not not Jeff Gordon could pinch this title off Jimmie Johnson. To do so, he needed to grab the pole and hope that Jimmie was behind five other qualy-chasers...well that certainly worked....assuming he and Jimmie swapped cars this weekend and Jeff is driving the #48.

No?

Well then I guess that means Jimmie can celebrate for the second week in a row having clinched my TNRC title last time out at Phoenix. A sterling effort from Johnson, continuing his red-hot form to nab pole from Ryan Newman while the 2008 Budman will line up third.

Tez's NASCAR Qualifying Championship - Chase for the Plate, final standings

1 - Jimmie Johnson, 79 points
2 - Jeff Gordon, 63 points
3 - Ryan Newman, 57 points
4 - Kurt Busch, 49 points
5 - Kasey Kahne, 47 points
6 - Denny Hamlin, 28 points
=7 - Dale Earnhardt Jr, 23 points
=7 - Carl Edwards, 23 points
9 - Juan Montoya, 21 points
10 - Elliott Sadler, 20 points (sorry mate...been spelling your name with one 't', my bad)
11 - Kyle Busch, 14 points
12 - Jamie McMurray, 9 points

Carl Edwards and Dale Earnhardt Jr end up tied in 7th with 1 pole each for the season...and I can't be bothered going through the whole season to figure out who had the better starting positions so they end up equal. I suppose the biggest story out of these 12 guys are the GEM boys of Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler. Compared to where they currently sit in the TNRC (Kahne in equal 22nd, Sadler in equal 31st), this has to be the best example of how big the difference is between getting a car to go fast for a few laps and a race distance...those guys just haven't had it in the races, maybe next year will be better.

So, another congratulations to Jimmie Johnson and the #48 bunch for winning the inaugural...I'm starting to sound like a broken record, sheesh *rolls eyes*...TNQC.

fine, so that's not a plate, but he still wins the TNQC anyway...and he's very pleased as you can see

Ok and here's the rest...I say preliminary since I have to check Mark's tally again.

Tez's NASCAR Qualifying Championship - Best of the Rest, preliminary standings

13 - Martin Truex Jr, 75 points (1 pole)
14 - Greg Biffle, 51 points (1 pole)
15 - Kevin Harvick, 42 points
16 - Bobby Labonte, 40 points
17 - Mark Martin, 36 points (must check this...he only had 25 in my post last week so maybe I stuffed up that number when I posted)
18 - Matt Kenseth, 35 points
19 - Scott Riggs, 34 points
20 - Clint Bowyer, 33 points (2 poles)
21 - Tony Stewart, 31 points
22 - Dave Blaney, 30 points (1 pole)
23 - Casey Mears, 29 points (1 pole)
24 - JJ Yeley, 28 points (1 pole)
25 - David Gilliland, 24 points (1 pole)
26 - Reed Sorenson, 21 points (1 pole)
=27 - Jeff Burton, 19 points
=27 - David Stremme, 19 points
29 - Ricky Rudd, 16 points
30 - Johnny Sauter, 15 points
31 - Michael Waltrip, 13 points (1 pole)
32 - David Ragan, 12 points
33 - Dale Jarrett, 10 points
=34 - Joe Nemechek, 9 points
=34 - Tony Raines, 9 points
=36 - AJ Allmendinger, 8 points
=36 - Robby Gordon, 8 points
=36 - Brian Vickers, 8 points
=39 - Sterling Marlin, 6 points
=39 - Ken Schrader, 6 points
=39 - Kenny Wallace, 6 points
=42 - John Andretti, 5 points
=42 - David Reutimann, 5 points
=42 - Boris Said, 5 points
45 - Jacques Villeneuve, 3 points
=46 - Ward Burton, 2 points
=46 - Bill Elliot, 2 points
=46 - Mike Skinner, 2 points
49 - Paul Menard, 1 point

And that's it until next year for this thing...thanks for (pretending to anyway *laugh*) being interested in it and I hope next years battle is as good as this one has been.