Stewart in Control but Still Guarded

It sounds so simple for Tony Stewart. He needs only to finish ninth in Sunday’s final NASCAR race at Homestead-Miami Speedway and the Nextel Cup championship is his. Even if Jimmie Johnson wins the race and leads the most laps.

Stewart knows better. Three years ago he went to Homestead with an 89-point lead over Mark Martin, needing only to finish 22nd to win his first Cup championship. Stewart led no laps and staggered home 18th. He won the title but lost 51 points to Martin.

His margin is 52 over Johnson.

And Stewart has finished worse than ninth in 11 of the 35 races this season, twice during the 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup.

He also has finished ninth or better in 19 of his last 21 races. And winning championships is nothing new to him, considering he won his first of many when he was 9.

Stewart insists that his approach to Sunday’s finale in Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 20 Chevrolet will be no different from all of this season’s other races.

“I sound like a broken record, but this week is not going to be any different from any other week,” he said. “We’re in the same position we were before the Chase started, and it’s really going to boil down to something as simple as going out and doing the same things the same way we did to get ourselves in the lead. We’re not watching where everybody else is.”

There is a different tone to his voice, though, a more serious sound, perhaps a warning to Johnson, Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle, his only remaining competitors for the $5-million champion’s prize.

“I can promise you, I want this championship worse than the rest of the drivers do,” Stewart said. “A lot of them have never won a championship yet, so people are going to ask how come I want it more. The one we won in 2002 kind of had an asterisk with the team. It was just not a clean year. We had a lot of turmoil and trouble among ourselves internally....

“2002 was probably one of the worse personal years of my life, even though it was one of the most gratifying professional years of my life. It’ll mean 10 times more if we can do it this year.”

Johnson, 52 points behind, knows what he has to do, and he knows the prospects are not good. After finishing only eight points behind Kurt Busch in last year’s Chase, he may be hard pressed to come that close again.

“I can tell I’m much calmer and I understand what’s going on,” said the former off-road racer from El Cajon. “I know I’m smarter and better prepared for the pressures of the Chase, but Tony Stewart’s been in this pressure-cooker before and he’s more relaxed too.

“But it’s go time. Our team confidence is high and everything is rolling. That’s all there is to it.”

If Stewart wins, it will be a win for the purists who dislike Brian France’s gimmick, the Chase. If points were counted for all 36 races, as they were before last year, Stewart would already have clinched the championship with a 282-point lead over Biffle with a race to go.

And what of Edwards and Biffle? They are not mathematically eliminated, but Edwards is 87 behind and Biffle 102, too far to rate serious consideration.

Sprint Cars

Damion Gardner will make his first start as the new Valvoline USAC/CRA sprint car champion Saturday night when the season concludes with the 50-lap Jack Kindoll Classic at Perris Auto Speedway. Gardner, with 15 main-event wins, clinched his first championship last week in Phoenix.

Dave Darland, 39-year-old USAC campaigner from Lincoln, Ind., will be coming off wins in the Budweiser Oval Nationals two weeks ago at Perris and the Western World Championships last week. Also entered are Cory Kruseman, a three-time Kindoll winner, and Rickie Gaunt, the defending champion.

All-America Team

Steve Kinser, winner of his 20th World of Outlaws sprint car championship, heads a list of 17 drivers selected to the American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Assn. 2005 All-America team. It was Kinser’s 18th first-team selection.

Two drivers, or driver teams, were selected in seven divisions. Joining Kinser as a short-track driver is Dave Steele, U.S. Auto Club Silver Crown champion. Open-wheel champions Sebastien Bourdais (Champ Car) and Dan Wheldon (Indy Racing League) were near unanimous selections. Stock car selections were Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson. Others:

Drag racing -- John Force, Tony Schumacher. Road racing -- Max Angelelli/Wayne Taylor, Scott Pruett/Luis Diaz. Touring series--Frank Kimmel, Martin Truex Jr. At large--Patrick Long/Jorg Bergmeister, Rob MacCachren.

Baja 1000

The 38th Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 off-road race will leave Ensenada, Mexico, today for a single loop race of 709 miles through rugged desert and mountainous terrain before finishing back at Ensenada sometime tonight.

A race-record of more than 360 entries includes Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Rice, motocross riders Travis Pastrana and Rick Johnson, and Pikes Peak hill climb champion Rod Millen.