Homestead predictions: Carl vs. Tony and more

There's no shortage of storylines at Homestead. By far the biggest is the championship battle between Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart. Here are six predictions for Sunday's race, from least important to most.

6. Brian Vickers will wreck someone, and be wrecked—and he won't be back in the Cup Series in 2012

Brian Vickers has been a wrecking machine the last few weeks. At Martinsville he seemed to be involved in altercations with half the field, and last week he took Matt Kenseth out of the race. I'd be surprised to see him still running at the end of the race on Sunday.
And Vickers hasn't done himself any favors with potential employers for 2012. After this type of behavior, I doubt he'll find a viable ride in the Cup series for next season.

5. There will be a fight

We’ve seen some entertaining fights at Homestead in recent years—the 2009 fight between Tony Stewart and Juan Montoya comes to mind.

Candidates for a fight include Vickers, Montoya and Martin Truex Jr. I would have included Kyle Busch on this list a few weeks ago, but I don’t think he’ll be stupid enough to do anything foolish at this point, possibly putting his entire NASCAR career at risk.

4. Lame-duck drivers will not run well

I don’t think that David Reutimann, Mark Martin, Brian Vickers, or Clint Bowyer will have strong runs in their last races with the current team.

Sure, these guys and their teams are competitors at heart, but there’s not much to race for and lame-duck teams are at an inherent disadvantage. The one exception to this is Kasey Kahne, who has been running lights-out all Chase long and won the race at Phoenix last week.

3. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will fall out of the top 10

Junior is sitting seventh in the standings, but he won’t rise any higher; Matt Kenseth in sixth is 32 points ahead of him, too far ahead to catch.

However, the four drivers behind Earnhardt in the standings are within 10 points of his position. Junior has no top-10’s at HMS and has finished 27th or worse in the last four races at the track. With another finish like that, he could easily slip to 11th in the standings and miss out on the championship celebrations in Las Vegas next month.

2. Jimmie Johnson will get his 10th straight top-5 points finish

Johnson is currently fifth in the points, two ahead of Matt Kenseth and three behind Brad Keselowski. I don’t think he’ll win on Sunday, but he generally runs well at Homestead and he’ll finish in front of at least one of the two drivers around him in the points.

However, Johnson will finish with fewer than three race victories in a season for the first time in his career. His only wins this season came at Talladega and Kansas.

1. Stewart will win the race and become a 3-time champion

Tony Stewart is three points behind Carl Edwards heading into the finale, and Edwards runs extremely well at Homestead. I think the only way Stewart wins the title is by winning the race—and I predict he’s going to do just that, winning his third championship in emphatic fashion. With five victories during the Chase, no one could say he didn’t earn it.