Who Will Win at Homestead-Miami Speedway?

By ESPN

No rule exists that a driver has to win the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway to win the title.

But in the first two years of the elimination-style Chase for the Sprint Cup format, a Chase driver has won the race to hoist the Sprint Cup trophy. And not just that, in both years the driver who finished second was among the four championship-eligible drivers.

So when Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards say they think they have to win Sunday, they have the relatively small history of the elimination-style Chase at least backing up such a statement.

"We race to win every week -- why should we race differently for a championship, right?" said Logano, who was foiled by a bad pit stop in the 2014 championship race. "We're racing to win that race, and that's ultimately going to have a championship attached to that."

Kenseth in Race, Then Out of It

Matt Kenseth stood by his car and tried to remain calm after he saw a potential victory and Chase for the Sprint Cup championship berth vanish in a wreck in NASCAR overtime Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway.

Kenseth was leading and in control of the Can-Am 500 when the caution came out for a Michael McDowell wreck with less than two laps remaining.

On the ensuing restart, he tried to cut in front of Alex Bowman and ended up crashed.

"Is there anything I can do or say right now to make it better?" Kenseth said. "The only thing I can really do or say right now is make things worse. I'm really trying not to do that."

But it was pretty clear that it was a devastating night for Kenseth, who won a championship in 2003 and still seeks another in a career that likely has only a few more years left.

"'Disappointed' would put it lightly," Kenseth said. "It finished our season. Five minutes before that, it looked like we were going to have a chance to go race for a championship."

Kenseth's spotter, Chris "Crazy" Osborne, took the blame for the accident, saying he had cleared Kenseth to the inside.

"It's a team effort," Kenseth said. "We win as a team; we lose as a team. I can't blame Chris. I didn't really see what happened. He said I was clear, so I started looking toward the corner. I got turned around.

"Things happen in a hurry. I don't know if Alex just drove in there in front of me or I wasn't clear."

Bowman was apologetic but didn't think he did much wrong. Kyle Busch was critical, saying that Bowman chopped down on him, so he tagged Bowman, who then was in position to be inside Kenseth when Kenseth thought he was clear.

"There is not really anything I can do when the spotter clears you and I'm inside of you," Bowman said. "I hate that it happened. It's very disappointing. I never would intentionally do that. I was just running my line and got turned sideways by the 18 [of Kyle Busch] and the next thing I know the 20 [of Kenseth] is driving across my nose.

"It's unfortunate. I don't think many people will be that hung up on it. If people were going to be that hung up on it, he'd be down here screaming at me now."