With a victory in Sunday’s Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Stewart became the seventh champion to win the season finale in his championship season. He out-dueled runner-up Carl Edwards in a finale befitting a championship showdown, tying Edwards in points – but winning the championship on a tiebreaker. Stewart’s five wins bested Edwards’ one, clinching the title for Stewart.

Stewart won his first championship in 2002 and second in 2005. The Indiana native now joins David Pearson, Lee Petty, Darrell Waltrip and Cale Yarborough – all NASCAR Hall of Fame members or inductees – as three-time champions. Nine drivers in NASCAR Sprint Cup history have won three or more championships.

Stewart entered the season-ending race trailing Edwards by three points. It marked the second consecutive season and fourth time since the inception of the position-based points system in 1975 the champion has overcome a points deficit entering the final race.

Stewart, co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing with Gene Haas, is the first driver-owner to claim the championship since Alan Kulwicki in 1992. The 2011 season is the organization’s third under its current ownership.

Stewart failed to win a race during the 26-race regular season. But he quickly caught fire, winning the first two races of the Chase, at Chicagoland Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He ultimately won five times – twice on consecutive weekends – to break the record for most Chase wins in a single season. Stewart has won 11 times in Chase history, second only to Jimmie Johnson’s 20.

Entering Sunday’s season finale, Stewart had led the points just twice in 2011, ironically after Edwards’ only victory in Las Vegas and following the fall race at New Hampshire. He finished the year with 44 career victories, tied for 15th on the all-time wins list.

Those wins wound up trumping Edwards’ consistency during both the regular season and the playoffs. Stewart’s nine top-five and 19 top-10 finishes trailed Edwards, however, the series-high five wins ultimately were the decisive factor in the championship’s outcome.

“We felt the U.S. Army Chevy was going to produce a better qualifying effort than what we managed,” said Newman, who has three top-10 finishes in nine career Sprint Cup starts at Homestead. “We just didn’t get everything out of the (qualifying) run. I under-drove turns one and two and that’s what probably made the difference because I felt I nailed turns three and four. Based on our two practice sessions today, I feel we should be in good shape for tomorrow’s race.”

Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet Impala, will start 15th after turning a lap of 31.154 seconds at 173.332 mph.

“Well, the qualifying deal isn’t how our race is going to play out. So, this is one lap of 400 hundred miles we’ve still got to go,” said Stewart, who won at Homestead in 1999 and 2000. “Fifteenth is pretty solid. We didn’t have a pole-winning car today, but our Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevy is pretty good in race trim. I’m glad we spent more time working on race trim than qualifying trim. We’ll see how it plays out.”

Carl Edwards captured his 10th career Sprint Cup pole, his second of the season and his second at Homestead by posting a lap of 30.775 seconds at 175.467 mph.

Edwards leads Stewart by just three points in the championship standings. A win by Stewart will clinch his third Sprint Cup title, augmenting the championships he earned in 2002 and 2005.

Martin Truex Jr., will start on the outside of row one as he timed in at 30.891 seconds at 174.808 mph. Kasey Kahne was third (30.931 seconds at 174.582 mph), while Kurt Busch (30.942 seconds at 174.520 mph) and Brad Keselowski (30.947 seconds at 174.492 mph) rounded out the top-five.

Forty-eight drivers attempted to qualify for the Ford 400. Those not making the cut in the 43-car field were Scott Speed, Reed Sorenson, Mike Skinner, Scott Riggs and Grant Enfinger.

As far as manufacturers, Ford took the top spot with Edwards’ pole-winning run. Toyota was next best via Truex’s runner-up effort, while Dodge was the third-fastest make thanks to Kurt Busch. Seventh-quick Jeff Gordon (30.957 seconds at 174.436 mph) carried the flag for Chevrolet.

The Ford 400 gets underway at 3 p.m. EST on Sunday with live coverage provided by ESPN beginning with a pre-race show at 2 p.m.

KRISTA VODA: Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of the France family and everyone within the NASCAR family, we want to welcome you to the championship contenders press conference.

SHANNON SPAKE: The season started back in February with the Daytona 500. After 35 races at 22 different racetracks in 20 states coast-to-coast, we are down to two outstanding drivers in contention for the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup championship.

KRISTA VODA: If it wasn’t for a little bad luck, this table would be a lot longer with more contenders. It has absolutely been one of the most thrilling Chases I’ve been a part of week in and week out.

SHANNON SPAKE: We can say the eighth edition of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup has been the best yet. Going into Sunday’s finale we have a two-time champion in second place in the standings, only three points back. Welcome the 2002 and 2005 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, Tony Stewart.

KRISTA VODA: The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points leader has followed a blueprint for consistency throughout this stellar season. He had a victory at Las Vegas and 18 top-five finishes, 25 top 10s, both series-leading numbers. Remember that three-point spread we keep talking about, that can all be based on that victory in Las Vegas which, of course, gave him three bonus points going into the Chase. Please welcome Carl Edwards.

SHANNON SPAKE: Now the fun begins. Congratulations for being the two who made it to this point and supplying one of the best championship Chases yet.

Tony, you won the title twice. Only eight drivers have won it three or more times. What would it mean to be in elite company? I would imagine this year would be special knowing you’re the one writing the checks.

TONY STEWART: It’s definitely an awesome opportunity for us. Still very appreciative that Gene Haas for even giving us this opportunity to not only drive for him but be a co-owner with him. At the same time it’s a pretty cool opportunity this weekend to be the other side of the bookend of Jimmie’s dynasty, to be the only guy that could win a NEXTEL Cup championship, a Sprint Cup championship, and a Winston Cup championship, being the first time since Allen Kulwicki as an owner/driver. That would be probably be the best part of it.

SHANNON SPAKE: You said at one point, We don’t deserve to be in the Chase. If you could have imagined being in this chair with one race to go, what would you have said?

TONY STEWART: I wouldn’t have thought that way 10 weeks ago. We had good racecars. We had the performance. We just weren’t getting the results at the end of the day. Some of them were self-inflicted; some of them were circumstances that got us there. We just didn’t have at that time the consistency that you need to run for a championship like this.

So we got off to a great start at Chicago and backed it up at Loudon, then we had our stumbling block, first one of the year in the Chase, with Dover obviously. But coming back and rebounding from the day we had at Martinsville to win that race, then to have the day we had at Texas leading the most laps and winning the race over Carl, those are the things that got us back in this position.

It’s an awesome position to be in. Three points really isn’t a deficit at this point. We go out and win the race, it doesn’t matter what they do on their side, we still control our own destiny.

We have absolutely got nothing to lose and everything to gain. That makes us a dangerous combination for the weekend.

KRISTA VODA: Carl we have heard Tony confident in Victory Lane during this Chase. You said last week you knew there was some potential for some nerves going into this weekend’s race. Where are those now?

CARL EDWARDS: I don’t really have any nerves. We’ve been running well, earned our spot at the top of the standings. I’m excited to have this opportunity to go out and win this championship. We couldn’t feel better about the racetrack. We feel really good about the race.

It’s pretty fun. I’m enjoying it. I’m just looking forward to going out there and racing the car.

KRISTA VODA: Have you practiced anything besides the back flip if you win this championship?

CARL EDWARDS: That’s about all I’ve got. I’ve showed you guys all I’ve got. I don’t know. I just can’t imagine that feeling. I’ve stood there in Victory Lane two out of the last three years and watched Jimmie celebrate and imagined what it would be like to be the champion. That would be spectacular.

KRISTA VODA: We’ll now bring Kerry Tharp back up here to start the question and answer segment.

KERRY THARP: We’ll start with questions for Tony or Carl.

Q. Tony, you were the last driver to win the championship before Jimmie Johnson’s streak. You could be the next driver to win the championship after Jimmie Johnson. Talk about how unique it is you could bookend both of those.

TONY STEWART: You have to win the first one to win the second one to have that opportunity, I guess.

You wouldn’t think you’d take a lot of pride in being the bookends of a dynasty. But it is a pretty cool position to be in, to know that there’s two guys in the last six years that have won championships, and we’re one of them. It would be nice to be the guy that gets on the other side of that obviously.

I rode home with Jimmie on the plane last weekend. Obviously it’s a disappointment to be eliminated from the Chase. It’s like I told him, I think that for him going to Vegas, to the banquet, they have to really hold their heads up high and be very, very proud.

It’s been an honor to watch him do what he’s done, but they need to be proud of what they’ve done the last five years. It’s probably something that will never happen again in the history of our sport. It’s very difficult to win a championship, let alone back-to-back and five in a row like that.

The competition keeps getting tougher and tougher every year. With this Chase format, you can’t make mistakes and have it pay off. To do what they’ve done has been extremely impressive.

Q. Your battle here has been trademark, you guys haven’t really clashed at all, been respectful towards each other. If it came down to the last lap and the only way around the other guy was to do a bump-n-run, would you dare do that, would you race each other clean?

TONY STEWART: I’d wreck my mom to win a championship. I’ll wreck your mom to win a championship (smiling).

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.

CARL EDWARDS: Did you say something (smiling)?

TONY STEWART: Yeah, you can come visit my trophy in the room at Vegas when you come out there (smiling).

CARL EDWARDS: He’s got the talking part figured out. Problem is, you haven’t led the points yet this year, have you?

TONY STEWART: They say there’s talkers and doers. I’ve done this twice.

CARL EDWARDS: 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.

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.

Q. Tony, in 2002 and 2005, you had big leads going into the finale. How different a feeling is it and are you possibly more relaxed knowing you’re just three points behind and can just go out and race?

TONY STEWART: It’s been odd. The only part this week that’s concerned me and that I’ve been worried about is the fact that I haven’t been nervous about it. In 2002, 2005, we had big leads, but still you were nervous about it because you knew it could get away. I guess the fact we didn’t think we would even be in the Chase to begin with, it’s taken a lot of that pressure off.

We’re not trying to overcome a big deficit. We’re right there right behind him. For us, like I said, we can finish 43rd this weekend and not be any worse off than we are right now so we don’t have anything to lose. We can throw everything we got at it. If we make a mistake doing it, it doesn’t cost anything. There’s no penalty for us screwing up.

With that does, it takes every ounce of pressure away. We have everything to gain, nothing to lose. Like I said, it’s a dangerous combination to put us in that kind of mode because we’ve been hot lately, we’ve been running good, we’re feeling good, the team is feeling good about everything. You couldn’t ask for a better scenario.

We’ve been in that situation, and when that pressure comes on race day, it’s a little different feeling. Your race always goes a little bit different than what you planned. For us not having that pressure, I think it leads us to have a day like we’ve been having every week the last three or four weeks.

Q. Carl, NASCAR’s new points system has truly generated some big-time excitement here at Homestead. You guys are working the championship a little differently, Carl with consistency, Tony with wins. Carl, you said you felt like the system made you focus on not having a bad race more so than winning. Do you still feel that way?

CARL EDWARDS: Yeah. I mean, obviously we’re leading the points. We haven’t won one. Tony has won four of these in the Chase. There’s different approaches you can take to it.

To be clear, we’ve not gone out and said, Hey, we’re not going to try to win this race, we’re going to cruise along. We’ve done our very best. For us, that’s one of the things I’ve most proud of. We’ve performed very well even on the days when things didn’t stack up in our favor. We had some pretty big hills we had to climb.

I feel whatever points system you’ve got, over time you’re going to have close battles, you’re going to have some that aren’t so close. I think all of us are fortunate that it’s close this year, it’s exciting. It’s fun to be a part of something like this.

TONY STEWART: The thing that I’ve been asked a lot about this week and even last week is, they’re like, How can their points system be good if the guy that’s won four races is behind a guy that hasn’t won any races?

The points system is good. It’s easy to look at that and say that it’s not good because of that fact. But what you got to understand is that, unlike other sports where it’s two teams against each other, it’s 43 teams, it’s a 10-race Chase. You accumulate points for 10 races.

The fact we’ve won four races doesn’t mean we should be ahead of Carl. We did not do our job in some of the other races. That got us behind. Because of the new system, having the bonus points for winning, we were able to catch up and gain those points back.

I think it’s proven to be a pretty good system so far. You have two guys within three points of each other going into the last race. I don’t know how you can say it’s bad.

Q. Carl, how important would it be for you to win the championship and be able to bring that trophy back home to all the folks that have helped you get to this point in time, Kenny Schrader, all your friends in Columbia?

CARL EDWARDS: I’m grateful to all of them every day I get to get in these racecars. So many people took a chance on me. Everybody has a story like that. All of us got here with a lot of help from a lot of different people. It would mean a lot to me. It would be huge.

I’m wise enough to know that my performance on the racetrack doesn’t define me as a man. It’s how I am as a person and the way I am to my family, my friends. When I put that helmet on, go out, do the best I can, the people that are behind me are going to be proud no matter the outcome. It would be really nice to bring that trophy home to Columbia, Missouri. That would be huge.

Q. You guys have put on a pretty remarkable show, particularly over the last couple races. What have you learned about each other through this process and how much respect have you gained for each other throughout the process of competing in this Chase?

TONY STEWART: 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.

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.

CARL EDWARDS: I can echo that. 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.

Q. Carl, Tony said here a few times he has nothing to lose. Are you buying that? The trophy is right behind him.

CARL EDWARDS: I’m not really buying it. I mean, he does have two trophies already at home. That’s a huge accomplishment. But I believe that Tony as an owner and as a competitor, I mean, if you’re asking me to believe that he doesn’t go to bed thinking, Man, I want to win this thing as bad as anyone, I don’t believe that.

I think for me it would be maybe a bigger accomplishment just because I do not have a championship in the Sprint Cup Series. But I think we’re both competitors, we both have that same desire to win, that same amount of pressure that comes with that, just to go out and perform.

Bad thing for both of us, the good thing for both of us at the same time, is we both seem to be able to go perform under that pressure.

I truly believe this could come down to who wins this race is going to win this championship.

Q. He said that he thinks having won a championship is an advantage. He won’t say what that advantage is. He said he’d say after the championship is over. What do you think that advantage is?

CARL EDWARDS: You’re asking me what I think?

Q. He won’t tell us – not now anyway. Will you tell us, Tony?

TONY STEWART: (Shaking head.)

Q. What do you think the advantage of having won championships is going into this race?

CARL EDWARDS: I don’t know any part of that trophy that makes a car faster this Sunday. To me it’s about going out and performing this Sunday. We’ll just see what happens.

When this thing is over, it’s like Tony said outside when we were talking with Darrell Waltrip, whoever wins, the other guy is going to be the first one to go up and shake his hand and say, Good job. That doesn’t mean we’re happy about it. But we’re going to see what happens on Sunday.

I feel good about it. We’ve run so well here. Bob is calm and cool. My crew is doing well. I feel like I’ve got good people behind me keeping me focused. We’ll go race.

Q. Carl, last year Denny came in here and he had Harvick on one side and Jimmie on the other. He was so nervous the whole stage was shaking. Kevin and Jimmie just pounced on that and needled him. Tony has been trying to do that to a degree to you for a few weeks. You’ve been able to tune it out, say that you have no nerves. How are you able to shut it all out and not be nervous about this opportunity in front of you?

CARL EDWARDS: There’s a couple reasons that I’m not nervous about this, and they’re personal reasons, they’re reasons that maybe someday I’ll talk to you more about in-depth.

I’m truly just excited about this. And it is interesting to me. I’ve learned a lot about Tony, the way he competes by what he’s said. I’ve paid attention to what he says. I pay attention to the way he looks when he gets out of the racecar, the body language he uses, things like that. I’ve learned a lot.

I don’t think he’s going to be any weaker of a competitor because of the things I’ve seen. I think he’s as good as they get and I’m going to have to go out there and do the best I can to be good enough to beat him.

I’m not afraid to admit right here in front of the world and everybody, I’m going to be proud because of how good of a racecar driver he is and the champion that he is, I’m going to be more proud to be able to beat him if that’s what happens.

Q. Tony, a week earlier you had said that you had Carl on the ropes. Do you still feel that way? How evenly matched are these teams and two of you as drivers?

TONY STEWART: Yeah, I feel that way. Like I said, whether Ron Jeremy down here believes us or not, we don’t have anything to lose. I mean, we literally don’t. There’s nothing that we can lose this weekend no matter what happens on the racetrack. We just don’t have anything to lose.

So I think when you got a guy that has something to lose, has a little to lose, then you got to worry about that a little bit. But when you’re a guy that has nowhere to go but up, you’re in that same situation and you race the way you always do. I think that makes you potent.

Q. Tony, everybody says there are no team orders out there. We all expect heavily there are. You have a lot of Ford drivers that are out there. You have Ryan, the Hendrick drivers. Any discussions the last week or so to let you guys have positions, let you have a win, anything like that? Do you want it to come down to that?

TONY STEWART: I don’t want it to come down to that. I feel like we can beat him heads up. We’ve raced for this position heads up and I think that’s the way it should end. It shouldn’t be about team orders.

We saw a hint of it last week. The 16 car picked a pit right in front of us. We never had an issue with it. But you know that that can happen.

Like we say, we’re racing for a national championship, so we are prepared that if something develops along that line, we have a countermeasure for the same thing.

But, no, nobody’s planning that way. You want to win this thing straight up. You want to win it because you did a better job than he did, not because somebody else got involved in the equation. That will take away from it.

CARL EDWARDS: Yeah, I feel the same way about it. We want to win because we deserve to win this thing. That’s that.

Q. Carl, in ’08 you won nine races, finished second to Jimmie. Felt like the next year you were going to pick up where you left off. Can you talk about the interim between then and now just to get in position to win one of these and does it make you not want to lose this chance because you’ve been on the cusp of it before?

CARL EDWARDS: Yeah, I think both of us realize we just watched five years go by since anyone else has won a championship. I talked to you guys a little bit about that in Phoenix. 2005, it slipped through my fingers. I thought, No big deal, we’ll just do it next year. Then I realize, Man, it’s a lot tougher than that. 2008, I think I held on a little too tightly, maybe was a little too aggressive. But I felt like 2009 was going to be our year again.

To be here three years later, I think I’ve realized that even driving the Ford for Jack Roush, having the best team I can have behind me, it’s still an opportunity that only comes up every once in a while and you have to make the most of it.

Q. Carl, you just mentioned you believe this could come down to whoever wins the race wins the championship. NASCAR hasn’t had a champion win its finale in 13 years. In both cases, if you win Sunday you win the title. With all the talk about winning lately, what would it mean to you personally and to NASCAR if that happens?

CARL EDWARDS: To me it would be the coolest thing in the world if we drove into turn three side-by-side, battled through the corner, one of us won by a bumper. It would just be better if I won. It would be good if it came down to that.

To me I could not be personally more proud of winning a championship that way. That’s something you dream about. Like I said, I think it could come down to that. I think that’s just neat as can be.

TONY STEWART: Yeah, I agree. It takes all the question of adding points, worrying about tiebreakers, this and that out of the equation when the fans can watch the guy that wins the race win the championship at the same time.

This is probably the best chance of having a championship decided with a win that you’ve ever had.

Q. Carl, you have a lot of obligations this week with your Ford obligations, you have the Nationwide. How does that play into what you’ve got with the job at hand on Sunday?

CARL EDWARDS: I don’t have a lot of obligations this week because of this situation. Ford, they’ve been an unbelievable partner to work with. They understand what I need to do is go do what I’ve been doing for the whole Chase. My sponsors, Aflac, Fastenal, Mike Beam, my crew chief on the Nationwide side, everyone understands that the Cup race is our number one focus. We just go do things like we’ve been doing them. I don’t have anything extra on my schedule this weekend.

Q. Tony, have you talked to Foyt in the last couple weeks? If so, what did he say? Did he have any observations about the smack talk going on, whether it works or not? Also have you talked to Darrell Waltrip, the all-time master of smack talk, on whether he thinks it will work for you or not?

TONY STEWART: Foyt has how many championships and wins? How many has Waltrip got? I think they work.

No, I’ve not talked to Foyt. He’ll call me after we win on Sunday. We did speak to Darrell earlier. We both had a pretty good interview with him. It was fun.

It’s like Carl says, it’s like Kid Rock said: It’s not cocky if you back it up. I think we’ve been backing it up the last three weeks. It’s what our intention is.

Q. Carl, can you talk about how you added stability to your life since you ran for the last championship. You have a family now, that good base behind you. How does that help you stay focused, knowing particularly that your crew chief is going to be back next year? You have all kinds of stability surrounding you going for the championship.

CARL EDWARDS: Yeah, I feel like we started this season at Phoenix last year, when things started clicking, going well. We were able to knock off the two wins at the end of last season. I believe that’s the result of a lot of what you just talked about. I’m very fortunate. Things are going real well, not just professionally but personally. I’ve got the most supportive group I’ve ever had in my life around me.

When I go to bed at night, I don’t worry about sponsors, I don’t worry about women, I don’t worry about money, I don’t worry about anything but going as fast as I can go. I just go out there and race.

For me, I’ve done it the other way, too. This works a lot better for me personally (laughter). It’s been good. It is nice to know next year, Bob and I, we talked about it a little bit, no matter what, he’s my crew chief next year and we’re going to pick this up where we left off. Win, lose or draw, I think we’re going to be tough to beat for a few years to come.

KERRY THARP: That concludes the formal Q&A with our two championship contenders in the Sprint Cup Series.

Let’s bring back Shannon Spake and Krista Voda.

SHANNON SPAKE: After 10,000 laps and 13,000 plus miles it all ends in Victory Lane Sunday night. We thank you for your attendance.

That’s because Stewart, the open-wheel phenom who came to NASCAR as a four-time USAC champion and the 1997 IZOD IndyCar Series champion, is on the cusp of earning his third NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title. And he’s doing it in a fashion no one thought possible – as a driver/owner.

Stewart, who left the comfy confines of Joe Gibbs Racing where he spent a decade in Sprint Cup and won championships in 2002 and 2005, struck out on his own in 2009 to form Stewart-Haas Racing with entrepreneur Gene Haas, founder of Haas Automation – the largest machine tool manufacturer in the western world. What people thought was crazy three years ago – a driver in the prime of his career taking on the dual responsibility of team ownership – has morphed into the closest championship battle in modern history, with Stewart providing the kind of drama NASCAR CEO and Chairman Brian France envisioned when he announced tweaks to the series’ point structure back in January.

A “Game 7 moment” is how France described his desired season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Well, here we are, with an all-or-nothing race on the docket come Sunday’s Ford 400.

Thanks to a hot streak by Stewart, who has won four of the nine races in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, he trails Chase leader Carl Edwards by only three points heading into Homestead.

Only one finish guarantees either driver the championship – a win. If Stewart and Edwards are tied in points at the end of the Ford 400, Stewart earns the championship via the tie-breaker of best finishes, as Stewart’s four victories trump Edwards’ one. This is the closest margin between first- and second-place going into the final race in Chase history, and the third-closest since the inception of the position-based points structure in 1975.

In Stewart vs. Edwards, it’s the Everyman vs. the Cover man, Chevy vs. Ford, grit vs. suave, stubble vs. polished.

Stewart, already a two-time Sprint Cup champion who knows what this weekend is all about, comes into Round No. 36 of 36 poised and confident, despite the three-point margin Edwards has over him.

Perhaps it’s because Stewart has lopped 16 points of Edwards’ once sizeable lead in the last four races. Perhaps it’s because even before coming to Sprint Cup, Stewart had won nine other driving titles. Perhaps it’s because Stewart has 43 career Sprint Cup wins, two of which have come at the 1.5-mile Homestead oval.

No matter, Stewart knows what has to be done and is keenly aware of the stakes. That the driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing could become the first driver/owner to win a Sprint Cup title since the late Alan Kulwicki in 1992 is simply added intrigue.

Stewart, after all, is a company man. And in Sunday’s season finale at Homestead, he plans to deliver.

TONY STEWART, Driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing:

This battle between you and Edwards is pretty impressive.
“It shows what this Chase is about. It’s a good battle right now. If you’re Brian France (NASCAR CEO and Chairman) right now, I would say he’s giddy. If not, he should be because this is the perfect scenario. It’s the perfect storm, so to speak, going into this last race. That’s what you want. This is about as exciting as it gets – to have two guys who are down to three points with one race to go.

“We’ve both had to fight and fight and fight to get every point we can get up to this point. I think it makes it more gratifying, the results, at the end of the day. I feel like I’m working toward something and I feel like if we accomplish this, we have worked for it, not had it handed to us, not had it given to us. That’s all you can ask for as a driver, is to be in that position.

“I think it’s pretty honorable to be in that situation right now. It’s an awesome championship battle. So, I don’t know how you could ask for more than what we got.”

How much is the experience of having already won two Sprint Cup championships playing into your hands now?
“It’s definitely an advantage, but I’m not going to tell you why because that’s what I’m going to take to Homestead with me. We win this thing, I’ll tell you what the advantage is and why, but not until then.”

You’ve been in two Sprint Cup championship runs before and won both of them. Is this one the most fun?
“I think so. The good thing is we’ve been in this position a lot of times. This isn’t the first time we’ve been in this deal. We have that ability. I didn’t think we belonged in the Chase to start with. I didn’t think we were a factor. What do we have to lose? We don’t have anything to lose. I don’t care about second or third in the points. After you’ve won it, second doesn’t really matter. To me, it’s about going out, getting that championship, doing everything you can to accomplish that goal. We’re not a group that’s going to sit here and say, ‘We’ll take the easy road and settle for second.’ I’d rather finish sixth or seventh in points knowing that we did everything we can to win.”

Can you handicap yourself going into Homestead? How do you and Edwards stack up?
“I think we both have momentum. We both had two really good weeks in a row. I still think our mile-and-a-half program has come a long way this summer. You look at how we ran at Chicago, Kentucky, Charlotte and Texas – we’ve been good on the mile-and-a-halves. I’m excited about it.

“I like Homestead. It’s a place that we had a lot of success when it was flat. We haven’t gotten that win with it banked. I like the way that track races right now. I’m pretty excited about it.

“I don’t know where to handicap it. Doesn’t matter to me. It’s just about getting four more points than he does. That’s all that matters.”

Explain a lap around Homestead.
“You go off into turn one, and when you get into the banking, you lift. If your car is good, you can go and not use any brake, or very, very little brake. You stay one lane off the bottom, past the transition – it’s a little less banking on the lower level toward the apron – so you stay one level above that. As soon as your car settles in you can really just mash right back in the gas and just ride that second level around down onto the backstretch. And then you do exactly the same thing going into turn three. A lot of times in turn three, because of the wind direction there, you can actually go into the corner a lot harder and a lot further, actually turning into the corner before you get off the gas. And it’s the same thing, once that car settles in, you get on the gas and ride it around to the frontstretch. It’s a pretty smooth racetrack.”

With the championship battle between you and Edwards, it means Jimmie Johnson’s run of Sprint Cup titles ends at five. What are your thoughts on his run?
“I think it’s been absolutely remarkable to begin with for Jimmie to put five in a row together. I know this year hasn’t ended up the way he’s wanted, by any means. I think he goes to Vegas (for the season-ending awards banquet) and holds his head up high knowing what they’ve accomplished – the fact that there’s a really good possibility in the history of the sport for eternity that it could never happen again.

“The competition gets tighter and tighter, tougher and tougher. I just think it’s amazing. You understand why people didn’t want him to win a sixth one. At the same time, I’ve said it from day one, how do you knock down a guy that’s going out and doing what he’s supposed to do? If we could trade places with him, we’d do it in a heartbeat, go out and win five in a row.

“I think you’ve got to tip your hat to him. I think that’s something in NASCAR history that I would put my money on that it will never happen again. I just think it’s remarkable at this level to do what he’s done, what that team’s done. I know this year hasn’t ended the way they wanted, but I still think they have to have a lot of pride in knowing they’ve done something in the history of the sport that most likely will never be duplicated.”

TONY STEWART’S HOMESTEAD PERFORMANCE PROFILE

× Race length extended due to green-white-checkered finish.

LOUDON, N.H. – Tony Stewart can’t possibly win the Chase this year.

That’s what the driver of the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Chevrolet wanted you—and his 11 competitors in the race for the Sprint Cup title—to believe.

That’s why Stewart said during a Sept. 15 Chase media day interview in Chicago that there were seven drivers who could win the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup—and he wasn’t one of them.

Two Chase races and two victories later, Stewart is laughing up his sleeve. With Sunday’s victory at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Stewart grabbed the championship lead from Kevin Harvick, who entered the Chase with a 12-point cushion over Stewart, thanks to four regular-season wins to Stewart’s none.

Though Stewart’s cars had been substandard for much of the season, he and crew chief Darian Grubb found something at Atlanta and Richmond, the last two races before the Chase. Stewart didn’t want his rivals to know that, either, discounting his ferocious run to third place at Atlanta as irrelevant, because Atlanta Motor Speedway, though an intermediate downforce track, doesn’t drive the way any of the five intermediates in the Chase do.

Stewart’s demurral about Atlanta didn’t fool Carl Edwards.

“I’d like to agree with him and say he’s not a threat and we don’t even have to worry about him, but I’m going to disagree with Tony and say that I think he is a threat,” Edwards said. “The first time that I actually started getting nervous about that team was at the end of the Atlanta race when he was just marching forward, and I thought, ‘Man, they’ve got something here.’

“If you remember back to our win at Vegas, he was screaming fast there, so I think they’re going to be tough. I think Tony is obviously a great racecar driver. He’s been through championship battles and won them, and I think he’s going to be tough unless they have some sort of slump like everybody can have and everybody has had, then they’re going to be tough. He’s not going to make mistakes.”

Edwards made those comments two days before Stewart won at Loudon.

Stewart himself views his recent success as a four-race turnaround, and after walking from victory lane to the media center Sunday, he acknowledged it. From a human perspective, the two Chase wins have given Stewart-Haas a much-needed boost.

“When you talk about momentum, that racecar doesn’t know anything about momentum,” Stewart said. “It knows what you put in it; it knows how we drive it. It doesn’t know stats. It doesn’t know anything other than what’s put in it.

“Momentum deals with people. It’s not just these first two races of the Chase—it was the two weeks leading before it, too. We haven’t finished outside the top seven now in the last four weeks. That’s huge for us. That’s huge for our guys.”

It also says a lot about what may lie ahead for Stewart, perhaps a third title to go with the championships he won in 2002 and 2005.

“We’ve had one of those seasons up to the Chase where we couldn’t do anything right,” Stewart said. “I mean, we couldn’t get it clicking. We couldn’t get through all the bad luck. It seems like every week something would happen, and we’d have to try to dig ourselves out of a hole the rest of the day.

“I’m hoping and praying that we’re through that bad-luck string now, and things are hopefully going to click the next eight weeks.”

If that’s the case, Stewart may well hold the trophy at Homestead, but one thing is certain—the possum act is a thing of the past, as far as his rivals are concerned.

Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Haas Automation Chevrolet Impala for SHR, finished 10th to score his seventh top-15 finish in 10 career All-Star Races.

Carl Edwards won the All-Star Race. It was his first All-Star Race win and his first Sprint Cup victory at Charlotte.

Kyle Busch finished .443 of a second behind Edwards in the runner-up spot, while David Reutimann, Stewart and Greg Biffle rounded out the top-five. Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, David Ragan, Kevin Harvick and Newman comprised the remainder of the top-10.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series returns to point-paying racing on May 29 with the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte. The longest race on the Sprint Cup schedule gets underway at 6 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX beginning at 5:30 p.m.

Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images for NASCAR

Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet Impala, led the two-car Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) contingent in time trials at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway by qualifying 13th for Sunday’s Jeff Byrd 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Stewart turned a lap of 15.129 seconds at 126.829 mph on the .533-mile oval.

“It kind of felt like the car was up on top of the track,” said Stewart, who won at Bristol in August 2001. “Tight in the center, too. The good news is that it’s fixable. The Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevy was pretty good in practice, so with another session tomorrow, we’ll get ready for Sunday.”

Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 Tornados Chevrolet Impala for SHR, will start 21st after turning a lap of 15.181 seconds at 126.395 mph.

“We struggled with the balance a good bit, so we’ve got a couple of things to work out,” said Newman, who has 10 top-10 finishes in 18 career Sprint Cup starts at Bristol. “I’m just proud of everybody to get this Tornados Chevy to where we are right now. We’ve got some work to do in race trim, but I’m sure we’re capable of it.”

Carl Edwards captured his ninth career Sprint Cup pole, his second of the season and his second at Bristol by posting a lap of 14.989 seconds at 128.014 mph. Newman continues to hold the track qualifying record with a lap of 14.908 seconds at 128.709 mph, set on March 21, 2003.

Edwards’ Roush Fenway Racing teammate Greg Biffle will start on the outside of row one, as he timed in at 15.035 seconds at 127.622 mph. Regan Smith was third (15.040 seconds at 127.580 mph), while Paul Menard (15.045 seconds at 127.537 mph) and David Ragan (15.055 seconds at 127.453 mph) rounded out the top-five.

Forty-four drivers attempted to qualify for the Jeff Byrd 500. The lone driver not making the cut in the 43-car field was Ken Schrader.

As far as manufacturers went, Ford swept the front row thanks to the runs of Edwards and Biffle. Chevrolet was next best at the hands of Smith, while the top Toyota came via eighth-quick Martin Truex Jr. (15.104 seconds at 127.039 mph). The best Dodge was 20th-quick Kurt Busch (15.181 seconds at 126.395 mph).

Tony Stewart will be one of the NASCAR HOTPASS featured drivers. Fans can “ride-along” with Tony on DIRECTV channel 795 .  The Jeff Byrd 500 gets underway at 1 p.m. EDT on Sunday, March 20 with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with a pre-race show at 12:30 p.m.

The NASCAR HOTPASS lineup for the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway is as follows:

DIRECTV Channel 795: Tony Stewart and the No. 14 Office Depot / Old Spice Chevrolet team of Stewart-Haas Racing will make his 405th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start and his 23rd at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway … Has one win (October 2003) and 11 top-10 finishes in 22 career Sprint Cup starts at the 1.5-mile oval … The 39-year-old Columbus, Ind., native has won 37 races and has 234 top-10 finishes in 404 Sprint Cup starts … 2010 marks Stewart’s 12th full year in Sprint Cup and he won the points championship in 2002 and 2005 … Started 16th and finished ninth two weeks ago at Dover (Del.) International Speedway … Ranks 14th in Sprint Cup points with four top-10 finishes.

DIRECTV Channel 796: Jimmie Johnson will make his 304th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start and his 18th at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway … Has six wins, three poles and 13 top-10 finishes in 17 starts at the 1.5-mile oval … The 34-year-old from El Cajon, Calif., has 50 wins and 187 top-10 finishes in 303 Sprint Cup starts … 2010 marks Johnson’s ninth full year in Sprint Cup and he won the points championship in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 … Started fifth and finished 16th two weeks ago at Dover (Del.) International Speedway … Ranks fourth in Sprint Cup Series points with three victories.

DIRECTV Channel 797: Dale Earnhardt Jr., will make his 376th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start and his 22nd at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway … Has one pole (May 2000) and nine top-10 finishes in 22 starts at the 1.5-mile oval … The 35-year-old Kannapolis, N.C., native has won 18 races and has 145 top-10 finishes in 375 Sprint Cup starts … 2010 marks Earnhardt’s 11th full year in Sprint Cup with a career-best point finish of third in 2003 … Won 1998 and 1999 NASCAR Nationwide Series championships … Started 27th and finished 30th two weeks ago at Dover (Del.) International Speedway … Ranks 16th in Sprint Cup points with three top-10 finishes.

DIRECTV Channel 798: Carl Edwards will make his 206th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start and his 11th at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway … Has seven top-10 finishes in 10 starts at the 1.5-mile oval … The 30-year-old Columbia, Mo., native has won 16 races and has 105 top-10 finishes in 205 Sprint Cup starts … Captured 2007 NASCAR Nationwide Series title … 2010 marks Edwards’ sixth full year in Sprint Cup with a career-best point finish of second in 2008 … Started ninth and finished eighth two weeks ago at Dover (Del.) International Speedway … Ranks 10th in Sprint Cup points with six top-10 finishes.

NASCAR HOTPASS is available free to all DIRECTV customers. More information is available at www.directv.com/hotpass.

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