November 20, 2011
By Kim Roberson
Kim Roberson
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After 35 races at 22 different racetracks in 20 states, it has all come down to this: 400 miles under the sun in South Florida.
When we kick off the race in Homestead this afternoon, we will have two men racing for the championship. When the checkered flag flies later this evening, we will have one man holding the trophy.
So far, it has been a weekend for first time champions. Austin Dillon brought home the Camping World Truck Series Championship in a rain-shortened race Friday night, and last night, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., raised the Nationwide Series Championship trophy above his head. Today, we will determine if Carl Edwards will join the list of first timers, or if Tony Stewart will celebrate his third title.
It has been interesting to watch the title contenders, and enjoy the camaraderie and sportsmanship that has led up to this weekend.
“Like I've told Elliott (Sadler) before, I really learned a lot from him coming down the homestretch running for this championship. He's given me a lot of room. I don't think we've touched. We've raced really hard and clean. I really respect that and learned a lot from him,” noted Nationwide Champion Stenhouse, Jr., on Friday.
“For a while we had three of us really racing each other hard, with Reed Sorenson there being part of the battle,” added Sadler, who finished the Nationwide season second in points. “Seemed like every week one of us would mess up, the other two would do good, we kept rotating the top spot. Then we lost Reed kind of out of the battle. Then Ricky and I felt like we had some good, competitive runs against each other the last few months.
“I had a ball with it this year, I had a ball each and every week. I still get to race against a lot of the guys that race on Sunday,” Elliott concluded. “This is the most fun I've had in a racecar since I drove for Robert Yates (between 2003 and 2006). It was a lot of fun. I have a great connection with my owner, the same connection I had with Mr. Yates when I drove his car.”
In all three series, there has been no bitterness, no anger -- just some good old fashioned smack talk. Take this banter between Tony and Carl on Friday, when the original question was asked if Tony would wreck Carl if it came down to them being side by side on the last lap.
“I'd wreck my mom to win a championship,” Tony smiled. He then turned to Carl and added “I'll wreck your mom to win a championship.”
Stewart went on to explain “I respect him as a driver, but this isn't about friendships this weekend. This is a war. This is a battle. This is for a national championship. It's no holds barred this weekend. I didn't come this far to be one step away from it and let it slip away, so we're going to go for it.”
At which point Carl looked at Tony and asked with a smile “Did you say something?”
Stewart responded “Yeah, you can come visit my trophy in the room at Vegas when you come out there.”
“He's got the talking part figured out. Problem is, you haven't led the points yet this year, have you?” Edwards asked.
“They say there's talkers and doers. I've done this twice,” answered Tony.
“That's the funny thing. I've listened to you talk a lot today. You've talked a lot about your past successes. That is very respectable. And truly, all joking aside, that will make it more fun if we're able to beat you. It will make me more proud,” admitted Carl. “But this is going to be a good competition, you guys. Don't think for a second that either one of us are going to let anything slide. We're going to go out here, we're going to race hard, and we're going for this championship. I don't think you could find two harder racers than us up here and we both know that about each other.”
The most important thing to both of these men is respect, both on and off the track. They have it for each other, and they feel it is an important part of the Championship race.
“I don't think the Chase has changed my level of respect for him. I've always respected him as a driver and a person. So the fact that you're racing around him doesn't change that because that's what you do every week,” noted Stewart. “I don't know that we've really learned anything about each other than the fact that we both know we have to be on our game. We've forced each other to take what would be a good day and you have to make it great to succeed.
“We had Texas where we ran 1-2, the last week where we ran second and third. We're keeping each other honest, in my opinion. It's fun to have a championship race like that. You're not worried about saying, Well, is this guy going to be able to recover? We're forcing each other to both have good days.”
“I can echo that,” commented Carl. “It's pretty neat to go out there and push each other to raise our level of performance. It's been pretty interesting how it's worked out. We've both been very fast the last couple of races, being able to race one another, race for the wins. That's as good as it gets.
“I think Tony said it best after Texas. He said, This is what it's about. It feels like a battle at your Saturday night dirt track. These are the kind of points battles that I grew up watching. It's kind of neat to be a part of it.”
It has been a wonderful few weeks, leading up to this weekend’s finales of all three series. I don’t know if is the knowledge that we had the chance to have all new Champions for 2011, or just that the battles have been so darned good. After five straight years of the “Jimmie Johnson Show”, maybe it is just knowing that every team has their strengths and weaknesses, and that in the end, it is when those strengths outnumber those weaknesses that magic can be made.
No matter who takes home the big prize tonight, I can’t say that I will be disappointed. 2011 has been a heck of a season, and I can say that either way, the man on top will have earned the right to be there. And he will have done it with sportsmanship, maybe a little smack talking, and all together good racing.
It has also been a season that shows consistency can be worth its weight in gold. Edwards has only one win, back in Las Vegas, but he has amassed 18 top-five finishes and 25 top 10s.
Follow Kim on Twitter: @ksrgatorfn
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