
NASCAR at Homestead-Miami 2014: Race Schedule, Live Stream and Drivers to Watch
History will be made at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday.
The Ford EcoBoost 400 is the final race of the season, and the Sprint Cup champion will be crowned following the events of the race. Four drivers remain eligible to win the title, and Homestead-Miami Speedway's official website detailed how the winner will be determined:
"There will be no points advantage for any of the drivers coming into the Miami race, and each of the four will be on equal footing as the green flag is waved. It’s now a winner-take-all affair -- the driver that finishes best among the four contenders will claim the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship.
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It's truly going to be a fight to the finish. Don't miss a single lap, from the green to the checkered. This is a race you'll want to stay firmly planted in your seat for.
*Note: A full list of starting positions can be found here, via NASCAR.com.
Where: Homestead-Miami Speedway
When: Sunday, November 16, 3 p.m. ET
Watch: ESPN
Live Stream: WatchESPN
Drivers to Watch

Jeff Gordon grabbed the Coors Light pole this weekend, but he's not one of the drivers to watch. There are four drivers to watch like hawks—Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Ryan Newman.
For the first time in NASCAR history, the winner of the Sprint Cup title will be determined by a winner-take-all showdown. The nine-race, three-round elimination process was taxing for the entire field, but four drivers have withstood the test of their competition to move into a position to make history.
Harvick, the oldest of the four drivers, is considered the odds-on favorite. He has never won at Homestead, but he has five top-five finishes in 13 career races. That's not the only reason he's favored, though. Fox Sports' Tom Jensen tweeted his dominance compared to his competition:
Harvick will start the race in the best position of the four drivers, and he's happy that he has the early advantage, via Reid Spencer of NASCAR.com: "This is going to be a race that you are going to go through some changing conditions. Today was really about trying to get a solid starting spot. And we were able to do that."
Hamlin, 33, has the second-best starting position of the four drivers, and as Matt Baker of the Tampa Bay Times points out, he has been here before.
"The Tampa-born NASCAR driver entered the 2010 season finale as the championship favorite with a 15-point lead over Jimmie Johnson," Baker wrote. "But he struggled all weekend at Homestead, qualifying 37th and colliding with Greg Biffle to spoil his shot at a title."
No longer the young driver he was in 2010, Hamlin has matured and should be able to hold off the nerves that doomed his championship race four years ago.
Just 24 years old, Logano is the youngster of the group. He has the chance to be the third-youngest champion in NASCAR history, and his success this season exemplifies his ability to simply go out there and race. Experience might not be on his side, but pure talent is.
Statistics show that he has actually been the best driver of the four this season, via Mike Hembree of USA Today: "Through the season's first 35 races, Logano has five wins, 16 top fives and 22 top 10s – the best of the Chase Four in each category. Harvick has four wins, Hamlin one and Newman zero."
Logano has just one top-10 finish in five career races at Homestead.
Rounding out the group is Newman, who is perhaps one of the quietest finalists in the history of the Sprint Cup. He hasn't won a single race this year and is still in contention for the crown, and, naturally, that has upset more than a few people.
Mark Whicker of USA Today is one of those people:
"Although the rules were yet again reworked to make the Chase more exciting this year, and the new emphasis was on actually winning races, Newman has run away from them much more decisively than he’s escaped other drivers.
Newman not only did not get a win, he finished outside the Top 10 in 20 of the 35 races. Going into the Chase, his best finish was third, at Kentucky and Martinsville.
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Newman is a good driver, but his resume definitely suggests that he isn't worthy of competing against the other three. Johnson, Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brad Keselowski would have been more deserving competitors, but the rules state otherwise.
Newman is deserving based on the structure of the Chase, but rest assured that there will be an uproar of sorts if he finishes ahead of Harvick, Hamlin and Logano.
With major implications on the future rules of the Sprint Cup championship, this race is going to be special. Be sure to tune in Sunday at 3 p.m. ET.
Racing history statistics courtesy of racing-reference.info.
Follow Kenny DeJohn on Twitter: @kennydejohn

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