Stewart Can Put It on Cruise Control

Tony Stewart goes into the final NASCAR Nextel Cup race of the season Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway with what appears to be a comfortable lead in the “Chase for the Championship.” Stewart is 52 points ahead of Jimmie Johnson and 87 ahead of Carl Edwards.

Writes Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, “Stewart’s big lead means ninth place or better clinches the title -- and he has been top-10 in 19 of his past 21 starts.

“Putting it in layman’s terms, for anybody else to have a chance Sunday, Stewart would have to drive a rental car.”

Trivia time: Stewart began last year’s inaugural 10-race Chase in fourth place but was pretty much out of it after the first of the 10 races. What happened to Stewart in that race at Loudon, N.H.?

Tough disciplinarians: Officials at Homestead on Tuesday canceled the unveiling of a banner honoring last year’s Nextel Cup champion, Kurt Busch.

Busch was suspended by Roush Racing on Sunday after a run-in with police near Phoenix last Friday night. Police said Busch, who was cited for reckless driving, smelled of alcohol and was belligerent.

“Wait,” wrote the Herald’s Cote. “Let me get this straight. Drinking, reckless driving. I thought that was NASCAR!”

A Giant step backward: Under the headline “Brother Act,” Steve Serby of the New York Post wrote last week, “If you listen closely enough, you can hear the whispers that are beginning to whistle through a town that hasn’t been able to cheer a football championship in 15 years.

“Eli Manning versus Peyton Manning in the Super Bowl. Oh, brother! Wouldn’t that be something?”

Yes, that really would be something, considering that the Giants lost Sunday to the lowly Minnesota Vikings.

An ice place: Mike Downey of the Chicago Tribune reports there are rumors that the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins might move by 2007 to a new 18,500-seat arena in Kansas City.

“I hope they would keep the name,” Downey wrote. “If Utah can have jazz, Kansas City can have penguins.”

Not as easy as Jack Lord: Seattle Seahawk announcer Steve Raible, on why St. Louis Ram teammates refer to linebacker Pisa Tinoisamoa as “Hawaii Five-0: “Because he’s from Hawaii, he wears No. 50 -- and nobody can say Pisa Tinoisamoa.”

Looking back: On this date in 1957, Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics set an NBA record with 49 rebounds in a 111-89 victory over the Philadelphia Warriors. Russell broke his own record with 51 against Syracuse in 1960, and later that season Wilt Chamberlain set the current NBA record with 55 against the Celtics.

Trivia answer: Stewart was caught up in an accident and finished 39th.

And finally: David Thomas of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, on the demolition of Busch Stadium in St. Louis, beginning with the dropping of a five-ton wrecking ball: “Replays did not support Doug Eddings’ claim that the ball hit the ground first.”

Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.