Setup Sheet: Homestead
"Welcome to Miami (Homestead)"
"Bienvenidos a Miami (Homestead)"
Big Willie Style was not a classic album but it gave the classic Miami before Mr. 305, Mr. Worldwide came along and stole Vice City’s thunder. NASCAR heads to South Beach, kinda, this weekend for the second race of the semi-final round. Much like F1 they race Miami adjacent just without a fake Marina with plywood water in the parking lot of a meddling NFL franchise. Instead they race at a purpose built track erected out of destruction from Hurricane Andrew.
Homestead has steadily grown into a fan and driver favorite alike. People forget this race track started life as a miniature Indianapolis Motor Speedway and then was reconfigured into a flat 1.5 mile oval which Tony Stewart loved before finally being reconfigured into the progressive banked track everyone loves today.
Larson, Bell, and Byron or The Field?
William Byron, Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell have won the last 3 races at Homestead. All three drivers currently sit 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in points as well. So, are you taking those three or the field?
Last years race won by Christopher Bell was headed to be a battle between he and Kyle Larson before the “best driver in the world” hit the attenuator coming to pit road during green flag pit stops. The year before that Kyle Larson DOMINATED the race at Homestead, he was out of the championship hunt but as he crossed the line he said “Hell yeah boys we kicked their fucking asses today!” And then in 2021 you had William Byron and Rudy Fugle pick up their first win together.
Or do you take the field? Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, and Martin Truex Jr are the only other drivers that have won at Homestead. Tyler Reddick won twice here to win back to back NASCAR Xfinity Series titles like he was Ricky Stenhouse Jr. In 2023, Ryan Blaney had the second fastest median lap time during the race and he desperately needs a win.
I’ll go with the trio of Bell, Larson and Byron to win this weekend.
Wish This Was The Championship Race
Homestead hosted the final race of the season from 2002-2019 and we didn’t know how good we had it. NASCAR moved the Championship weekend to Phoenix in 2020 and it made sense at the time. They had just finished major renovations to Phoenix and wanted to show off the facility. The racing however has been sleep inducing like well a race at Phoenix.
Now as we watch all three series in action this weekend at Homestead we’re all left wishing this was the championship weekend. It’s like watching NFL, NBA or MLB playoffs and knowing that the two best teams are playing in the conference championship game just for one of them to go on to play an inferior team.
Homestead moves to the 6th race of the season in 2025 and the general thought it this was done to make improvements to the track before potentially bringing back the championship weekend in 2026.
Desperate Times
Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney find themselves in desperate times. Unlike some drivers (Austin Dillon) desperate times don’t always call for desperate measures. Unless of course it’s a fuel mileage race then potentially you could see one of the two take a desperate flyer on it. But both are essentially in must win positions.
Blaney is -47 to the cut line and Elliott is worse off at -53. For Elliott he has 8 starts at the track with 2 Top-5 finishes, 3 Top-10s and an average finish of 10.4. Blaney has 9 starts with 2 Top-5 and 2 Top-10 finishes and an average finish of 16.8. Both drivers are going to need career days if they want a fighting chance headed to Martinsville. Max stage points and a good finish with bad luck for those in front of them will be the only way both drivers could go to Martinsville with a chance to point in.
Good news for both drivers, they’ve both won at Martinsville. Hendrick and Penske will absolutely bring cars next weekend both can win with. The question now is can they?
NBC Sports App Frustration
I come to you once again to say that the NBC Sports App is balls sometimes. Every single time I turn on my Apple TV, find the NBC Sports app, open it, click on the nascar coverage that is exclusive to the app I’m told “you’re not authorized to watch this.” So then I have to go into the settings, unlink YouTubeTV, relink it and everything is magically fixed. Every single time I use this app and it is maddening.
“JUST PUT IT ON PEACOCK” - everyone on the internet.
Yes that makes total sense and in a perfect world you’re correct unfortunately the current TV deal which ends at the end of this season won’t allow that. This deal was made before Peacock existed and for NBC leaving it on the Sports app makes sense. Even if the app is inherently broken.
Good news, we don’t have to worry about it for next year. Practice and qualifying in the first half of the year will be on Prime Video, the second half will be on TruTV and Max (HBO).
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