8 – THE DERRICK. / The News-Herald Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Ken Willis has been covering NASCAR for The Daytona Beach News-Journal for 27 years. Reach him at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com

QUESTIONS & ATTITUDECompelling questions ...

and maybe a few actual answers

WHAT’S ON TAP?

FEUD OF THE WEEK

facebook.com/nascardaytona

@nascardaytona

news-journalonline.com/nascar

ONLINE EXTRAS

FEEDBACKDo you have questions orcomments about NASCAR This Week? Contact Godwin Kelly at godwin.kelly@news-jrnl.com or Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com

CUP POINTS

Godwin Kelly is the Daytona Beach News-Journal’s motorsports editor and has covered NASCAR for 30 years. Reach him at godwin.

kelly@news-jrnl.com

GODWIN’S HOMESTEAD PICKS

SPEED FREAKSA couple questions we had to ask — ourselves

HOT TOPICS: 3 ISSUES GENERATING A BUZZ

PHOENIX REWIND

WEEKLY DRIVER RANKINGS — BASED ON BEHAVIOR AND PERFORMANCEKEVIN

HARVICKDestined to

fi nd a pothole, right?

JOEYLOGANOWow, 16 top-fi ves this year

JEFFGORDON

Texas and Kez will haunt him

for a while

DENNYHAMLIN

No one had him in the Final Four

RYANNEWMAN

Willing to do what it takes

BRADKESELOWSKILeads league

in wins, but no Cup chance

JIMMIE JOHNSONWill win at

Homestead, trust us

MATTKENSETHWent out quietly,

go fi gure

JUNIOR EARNHARDTMore wins than

his Redskins this year

KYLELARSON

Wouldn’t dare confront Newman

The Eliminator Round was good for Kevin Har-vick, the last driver to ride the “win and you’re in” theme to the Championship Round at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The theme this week will be “survive and thrive” as Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Ryan Newman and Harvick go into the season fi nale looking to best their playoff rivals.

No win needed in South Florida. The highest-fi n-ishing driver among the Final Four will be crowned as the 2014 Sprint Cup champion.

Harvick is the de facto favorite because of his dominating performance at Phoenix, where he led 264 of 312 laps. He gapped second-place Jeff Gordon by 1.636 seconds after the last restart with 12 laps left.

Gordon joined Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards in the close-but-no-cigar club.

With Gordon out, it means that NASCAR’s top superteam, Hendrick Motorsports, will not be racing for title honors despite winning 13 Cup races this season.

But that also means NASCAR is guaran-teed to have a fresh-faced champion.

Hamlin must be considered the second-favorite driver, since he won Homestead in 2013. He lost the championship there to Jim-mie Johnson in 2010, so he fi ts into the old racing adage of “you must lose a champion-ship before winning one.”

Logano posted the best numbers throughout the Chase, but at 24, has never been this close to the trophy.

The dark horse is New-man, who has defi ed the “win and you’re in” stan-dard for 35 races. He got in and didn’t win. He hopes to extend that streak one more race for car owner Richard Childress, whose last title came in 1994 with Dale Earnhardt.

In order to make the Final Four, Newman had to elbow his way past rookie Kyle Larson on the last lap at Phoenix.

“It is un-believable,” Childress said. “Ryan drove with his heart, and that is what he did. That is what it took to get in.”

BILL’S KIDChase Elliott

didn’t wait for Homestead to earn champion-ship honors. The 18-year-old son of 1988 Cup champ

Bill Elliott captured the Nationwide Series title with a second-place fi nish at Phoenix. Chase became the youngest Nationwide champ in history, and that youth showed Saturday. “I didn’t know if I was OK to do a burnout, so I went ahead and did one,” he said sheepishly.

SWAN SONGESPN’s eight-year run as a NASCAR television

partner comes to end at Homestead. NBC Sports won NASCAR TV rights for the next 10 years, joining Fox at the broadcasting table. Fox got into NASCAR in 2001 and has never left. While some of ESPN’s crew will hook up with NBC, this will be the cable network’s last NASCAR race for at least the next decade.

The Final 4

Jeff Gordon fi nished second behind Kevin Harvick at Phoenix, but was consid-ered Sunday’s biggest loser. On the last lap, Ryan Newman muscled past rookie Kyle Larson for 11th place, good enough to nip Gordon for the last position in the Sprint Cup Championship Race, sched-uled this weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Gordon spoke about the dis-appointment after the Phoenix race.

On that last lap, things happened that kept you from advancing to the champi-

onship. Your thoughts? “Well, I’m really proud of the effort,

not just today but throughout this whole season and the Chase. I couldn’t be more proud of this team and the effort that they put out. Today was another one of those; I mean, Kevin was in another ZIP code. There was no touching him.

“We did everything that we could, other than have a faster race car than Kevin. That was near impossible. But yeah, it’s disappointing. It makes last week that much tougher to swallow, but that’s all

right, we put in a great effort at Martins-ville, great effort here, and it just wasn’t enough.

“Some things are out of our control, and I felt like we did a great job putting all the effort into the things that we could control.”

What’s the feeling when you’re kind of helpless like that?

“I knew prior to that last restart, (crew chief) Alan Gustafson told me that we weren’t in at that time, and then he said,

‘Give it everything you’ve got,’ and I did. And we come home second, and I just was hoping that it was going to be enough. When you hear those words that it wasn’t, it’s disappointing.”

Is it acceptable that somebody moves somebody for a spot in that situation?

“It was acceptable last week, it’s ac-ceptable this week. I mean, don’t think that’s not going to come back to you, you know. I mean, I could have taken out Har-vick, too, to make it in, but I didn’t.”

Jeff Gordon eliminated: ‘We did everything that we could’

Associated Press/RALPH FRESO

Celebrations are oldhat for Harvick’s sponsor.Is Harvick the favor-ite entering the fi nal at Homestead?GODSPEAK: As Lee Corso says, “Not so fast my friend!” This is a four-horse race, and I don’t see any Triple Crown threats.KEN’S CALL: Of course, but with his spotty luck this year, look out for falling meteors.

Can a winless Ryan Newman be champ?GODSPEAK: “Flyin’ Ryan” is my top pick going into Homestead because he just keeps fi nding a way.KEN’S CALL: It would make NASCAR very uncomfortable, but it can happen, and if Kyle Larson is in his way …

KYLELARSON

RYANNEWMAN

Kyle Larson vs. Ryan Newman: On the last lap of Sunday’s race, Newman got into the rookie, who pancaked the wall while Newman made the Chase Championship fi eld.Godwin Kelly gives his take: “Unlike Texas, there was no action on pit road after this encounter, probably because Newman is twice Larson’s size.”

SPRINT CUP: Ford EcoBoost 400SITE: Homestead-Miami SpeedwaySCHEDULE: Friday, practice (Fox Sports 1, 12:30 p.m.), qualifying (ESPN2, 6:15 p.m.). Saturday, practice (Fox Sports 1, noon; Fox Sports 2, 3 p.m.). Sunday, race (ESPN, coverage starts at 1 p.m., green fl ag at 3:16 p.m.)NATIONWIDE: Ford EcoBoost 300SITE: Homestead-Miami SpeedwaySCHEDULE: Saturday, qualifying (Fox Sports 1, 1 p.m.), race (ESPN2, 4 p.m.)CAMPING WORLD TRUCKS: Ford EcoBoost 200SITE: Homestead-Miami SpeedwaySCHEDULE: Friday, qualifying (Fox Sports 1, 2:30 p.m.), race (Fox Sports 1, 8 p.m.)

Associated Press/RALPH FRESO

Joey Logano’s season of good work has paid off so far.

How do you like the new Chase format now?

Given the overriding reasoning behind the new playoff-style format, you have to hang up a big “Mission Accomplished” label. In the end, the new format was designed and OK’d in an effort to help NASCAR capture (or recapture) some attention from the sporting public at a time of year when football dominates.

Is there a “However” coming?Of course. However, what the new

system does, much more dramati-cally than the original Chase system, is force us to change how we view a champion driver and his championship season. Before the Chase was born 10 years ago, if a driver won a champion-ship, you knew he was very good from February through November. Under the former Chase, you knew he’d been good or great into September, then excellent the fi nal 10 weeks.

And now?A lot of happenstance is involved

now, particularly in the case of Jeff Gordon. His Texas issue with Brad Keselowski was followed by losing a Final Four berth at Phoenix when Ryan Newman bulldozed Kyle Larson. New-man and Denny Hamlin are fortunate fi nalists. It’s not perfect, but competitive perfection wasn’t the aim.

Winner: Jeff GordonRest of the top fi ve: Dale Earn-hardt Jr., Brad Keselowski, Carl Edwards, Ryan NewmanDark horse: Marcos Ambrose

Disappointment: Denny HamlinFirst one out: Alex BowmanDon’t be surprised if: Newman is the highest-fi nishing Chase driver and wins the title .

1. Kevin Harvick 5,0001. Ryan Newman 5,0001. Joey Logano 5,0001. Denny Hamlin 5,0005. Brad Keselowski 2,3206. Jeff Gordon 2,3127. Matt Kenseth 2,2968. Kyle Busch 2,2809. Carl Edwards 2,27810. Dale Earnhardt Jr. 2,27111. AJ Allmendinger 2,25612. Greg Biffl e 2,24413. Jimmie Johnson 2,23914. Kurt Busch 2,22915. Kasey Kahne 2,20216. Aric Almirola 2,17017. Kyle Larson 1,04918. Jamie McMurray 97519. Clint Bowyer 94320. Austin Dillon 93921. Paul Menard 90422. Brian Vickers 90023. Marcos Ambrose 85324. Martin Truex Jr. 83025. Tony Stewart 79826. Casey Mears 75827. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 73528. Danica Patrick 70929. Justin Allgaier 60730. David Gilliland 54131. Michael Annett 52232. David Ragan 51733. Cole Whitt 51434. Reed Sorenson 49635. Alex Bowman 40136. Josh Wise 39337. Michael McDowell 23238. Travis Kvapil 21439. Ryan Truex 19340. Terry Labonte 8841. Jeff Burton 8742. Michael Waltrip 7643. David Stremme 75

Getty Images/SEAN GARDNER

It wasn’t artistic, but for some, Ryan Newman’s “bull in a china shop” pass of Kyle Larson was the type of all-out effort envisioned when the new Chase format was unveiled before this season.