Benny Parsons

On Sunday the Chase for the Nextel Cup championship draws to a close at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and while Tony Stewart isn't in the title hunt, he's my pick to win the race.

Working in Stewart's favor
Stewart's nickname is "Smoke," and of late he has been smoking the competition. The defending Cup champion has two wins in his last three races.

He also has three wins in the nine Chase races giving him five trips to Victory Lane this season. If he crosses the checkers first on Sunday, he'll equal his career high for most wins in a season set in 2000, his second year with Joe Gibbs Racing.

Stewart is the first non-Chase driver to win multiple races in the 10-event playoff, and when compared to drivers in the Chase, he has won more Chase races and scored more points.

The eight-year Nextel Cup Series veteran fell just 16 points short of the 10-driver cutoff for the Chase, but he has clinched 11th place, good for most drivers but the lowest Stewart has finished since he began competing at NASCAR's top level in 1999.

On Sunday Stewart will be in the same chassis that won for him at Kansas, Atlanta, and Texas. That chassis led for 429 of the 931 laps run in those three races.

At Homestead-Miami the two-time Cup champion has two wins, three top-fives, and four top-10s, with his worst finish being a 19th-place result in 2001. And Stewart has never recorded a DNF at this 1.5-mile oval.

Not being in the playoff, the red-hot Stewart is free of the burden of points-racing, and because of that he can go all out for wins in every event so expect him to make a huge push to finish the season on a high note in Miami.

Other drivers to watch
I was impressed by the run of Carl Edwards last week in Phoenix, where he started 12th and finished fifth. I believe Edwards will be better at Homestead-Miami with its variable banking than he was at the desert flat track last Sunday.

Last year at Miami, Edwards captured the pole, led for 94 laps, and came across the checkers fourth. I can see him turning in another top run on Sunday and being in the thick of the battle to win the race.

The leader by 63 points in the Chase standings is Jimmie Johnson, who is seeking his first Cup championship. Johnson has put on quite a rally in the playoff, and he's being running real fast cars.

If on Sunday Johnson gets track position and gets in front of the field, I'm not sure anyone can catch him. The Hendrick Motorsports driver has three top-10s in five Cup races at Miami, and he clinches the championship with a finish of 12th or better.

Matt Kenseth is second to Johnson in the Chase standings, but the Roush racer has had mediocre-at-best cars during the second half of the playoff. To the credit of Kenseth and his team, they have found a way to get some decent results.

But I think with the way his cars have been running the best you can figure for Kenseth on Sunday is about a 10th-place finish.

Kevin Harvick is tied with Denny Hamlin for third in the Chase 90 points back of Johnson. Harvick has run well at Homestead-Miami with four top-10s in five starts, including a runner-up result in 2003.

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Hamlin is the first rookie to ever make the Chase, and this will be just his second Cup race at Homestead-Miami.

Besides Johnson, Kenseth, Harvick, and Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is the only other driver still mathematically alive to win the Chase. Junior is fifth in the standings, 115 points behind Johnson.  

Junior is running better at 1.5-mile tracks, but at Homestead-Miami his best finish is 13th and that came back in 2000. Junior's average finish at this venue is 19.2.