The case for taking NASCAR's championship race back to Homestead-Miami

Yesterday at 02:21 PM

Homestead-Miami Speedway is everything right with intermediate NASCAR Cup Series racing.

One might not have thought that if they were reading social media while Ryan Blaney led by nearly nine seconds on Sunday afternoon. But thankfully, social media isn't real life. As wonderful as it can be as a platform for sports, entertainment and news, lest we forget that it's also a place for the loudest people in the room, oftentimes the unhappy ones, and not always those who represent the majority.

That seemed to be the case over the weekend. The race hadn't completed two stages before the online chatter started that it wasn't a good race. Or a recurring question: why would anyone want it to be the championship host?

With respect to everyone being allowed an opinion, the one place that should get an overwhelming positive response is Homestead-Miami. And it's for exactly what the product was on Sunday that the track is in the conversation to again host championship weekend. The latter is a matter of finalizing the deal.

All three races were entertaining, but in particular, the Cup Series race was everything a viewer should want.

It starts visually. There is no one preferred lane around Homestead-Miami Speedway. Were it not for electrical issues, Corey Heim very likely would have beaten Kyle Larson by being as fast as he was on the bottom of the racetrack.

However, it does seem to reward those with the skill to put their car right against the wall. And that, too, is a part of the romanticism about the track: watching the three-hour mental war a driver has with themselves and the right side of the race car.

"People don't appreciate how good the drivers really, really are and certainly, it is impressive when you look at it from the outside," Denny Hamlin said on his podcast on Monday. "Even from our standpoint, that's why you saw us hit the wall a bunch of times. It's really, really difficult because we're all just searching for that little bit of gap that's going to make the difference."

For a team to prevail at Homestead-Miami requires every aspect of motor racing. There’s the aforementioned driver skill, plus execution of the pit crew on pit road and the strategy of the race team.

There were multiple strategies on Sunday, with some teams, like those of Larson and Hamlin, keeping their drivers on track longer during a green flag pit cycle. At first, it was hard to track how it would work out as the drivers fell back into the pack, but the strategy was counting on the long run speed (and fresher tire) to make up the difference. Hamlin and Larson used it in the second stage to drive to a 1-2 finish.

From there comes the changing track conditions, as the race starts late afternoon. Martin Truex Jr. has told the story about the time during his 2017 championship when he argued with crew chief Cole Pearn over the car’s handling not being as good as he felt he needed to be. But Pearn knew it was a long race and as such, the track would change, and so too would the adjustments in their favor. In the end, Truex was there when it mattered to win the race, and the title.

So, what is not to love about a place like Homestead-Miami? It's a perfect race that showcases all of these elements: driver, team, speed, tire fall, and staying in the game all day long, even when it's not a perfect performance.

Larson had one of those days on his way to winning Sunday's race. He described it as a lot of gritty, hard work put in by his team.

"It was a workman-like day," Cliff Daniels said.

Homestead was a competitive race. It was a racing purist race. That is what people want to see. And that’s why makes a great venue for a championship race.