A trip down memory lane as Homestead-Miami Speedway hosts final NASCAR championship
For 17 years, Homestead-Miami Speedway has been synonymous with NASCAR’s championship weekend. Through the years, sellout crowds and celebrities ranging from former first lady Michelle Obama to Kid Rock to Jason Aldean to Michael Jordan showed up at the track in mid-November as the dramatic season came to a close and the Cup series champion was crowned.
That tradition ends Sunday.
Next year, for the first time since 2001, the championship will be decided on a track other than Homestead.
NASCAR announced earlier this year it is shuffling its schedule and moving the championship race weekend from Homestead to the renovated ISM Raceway outside Phoenix. Homestead will continue to host a race on March 22, joining South Florida’s busy spring calendar along with the Miami Open tennis tournament, Florida Derby, Inter Miami’s inaugural soccer season, Ultra Music Festival, Calle Ocho and Dade County Youth Fair.
Al Garcia, the president of the speedway, is sorry to see the championship go, but feels the spring date will allow them to cross-promote with other events in town and maybe draw new audiences to the track.
A Miami native, Garcia began his motorsports career shortly after graduating from Miami Columbus High School. He got a job in 1985 working on the Miami Grand Prix with Homestead Speedway founder Ralph Sanchez and has attended every race at the track since it opened in 1995. He has watched more than 4,500 laps and 6,800 miles of championship racing since the first Cup Series finale at the track in 2002.
“It’s been a body of work,” Garcia said. “I’ve loved this sport since I was a kid. It’s been incredible to watch the transformation and growth of Ralph’s vision, and a great example of a very successful public/private partnership.”
As he prepared for the final championship weekend at his speedway, Garcia was asked what he will remember most about the 17-year championship era.
The first two words that came to his mind: Jimmie Johnson.
Johnson, the 44-year-old Californian, is a seven-time champion in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and all seven titles were decided in Homestead. He won five in a row from 2006 to 2010, and also took home the series championship in 2013 and 2016, tying the record held by legends Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.
He claimed his seventh championship in a race in which he started at the rear of the field due to a pre-race inspection fault. He moved up through the field, but hung around fifth place for most of the race. A wreck with 10 laps to go knocked Carl Edwards out of contention. Johnson avoided the accident and passed Kyle Larson to win the race and the record-tying title.
“When you look back on it, if you had to say one singular thing, it’s Jimmie Johnson’s seven titles,” Garcia said. “I think it goes unnoticed and undervalued. When it’s said and done, for him to win seven championships and every one of those has been celebrated at Miami Homestead Motor Speedway.
“Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Richard Petty also have seven championships, but they were earned in a number of different venues. For him to them all here is incredible.”
Other memorable moments...
NOV. 21, 2004: KURT BUSCH GETS LUCKY, WINS CUP
The final six races of the 2004 season were memorable, but the sport also suffered tragic news. On Oct. 24, prior to the Martinsville, Virginia., race, a Hendrick Motorsports plane crashed during its approach to the Blue Ridge Airport and killed 10 people aboard, including team owner Rick Hendrick’s son and brother.
Johnson, a Hendrick driver, won the race, but the victory ceremony was canceled as word of the accident got to the track.
Racing under a cloud of grief the next month, Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch positioned themselves to finish the season with a heart-stopping battle for the title.
In the finale at Homestead, Busch lost a right-front wheel on the 93rd of 267 laps, but he got lucky. He missed hitting the outside pit wall by inches, and because it happened just as he got to the commitment line, he was able to slip into the pits while his tire went rolling into the front straightaway. Because the loose tire was on the track, the race fell under a caution flag, everyone slowed down, and Busch had time to get another tire, and stay on the lead lap as he got back into the race.
“If that happens to him 100 yards down and he’s on the front straight when tire comes off, he’s done, championship over,” Garcia said. “Just the timing of that tire coming off is what saved him.”
Greg Biffle won the race, Johnson placed second and finished second in points behind Busch, who needed just a fifth-place finish to claim the crown over Johnson and Gordon.
NOV. 20, 2011: TONY STEWART WINS DRAMATIC TITLE
“As far as poignant, storybook endings, like the ’83 national championship with the [University of Miami] Hurricanes when Nebraska went for two and Bubba McDowell knocked down their attempt, that type of a moment ... I’d have to say the most compelling was Tony Stewart in 2011,” Garcia said.
The backstory: Stewart had not won a race during the regular season. He got into the playoffs based on total points. Edwards had a slim lead in points heading into Homestead, and would have had a bigger lead had he not dropped from ninth to 10th place in the final lap of the Phoenix race the week before.
Stewart’s title at Homestead didn’t come easy. A part fell off another car at the start of the race and punctured a hole in the grill of his Chevrolet. He had to go into the pits, make repairs and fell to dead last. Stewart managed to pass every car and take the lead. Then, during a pit stop, the right rear tire changer bungled the changing of the tire and he went back to dead last. Again, he made his way back to the front. He passed every car twice.
Many experts called it the best drive in NASCAR history.
“He had 118 passes to get to the front,” Garcia said. “That is really, really compelling when you put all that together. Now, does the average fan sitting in the grandstands know this stuff? Maybe not. But the well-educated fans know that race was as good as it gets.”
After the race, Stewart said: “That shows how bad I wanted to win this thing. When you’re going for a championship, you can’t hold anything back. I couldn’t leave anything on the table.”
NOV. 20, 2011: MICHELLE OBAMA SERVES AS GRAND MARSHAL
Then-first lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, wife of the then-Vice President Joe Biden, appeared at the Ford 400 to serve as grand marshals and honor military troops and families. They were joined by Sgt. Andrew Berry, a wounded warrior who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
They received a standing ovation at a pre-race drivers’ meeting, but their welcome was not unanimously warm when they were announced to the crowd. They were met by a combination of mostly cheers, but some loud boos.
Obama’s communications director Kristina Schake issued the following statement:
“Mrs. Obama was proud to join NASCAR in recognizing our nation’s veterans and military families to raise awareness of this important issue for all Americans. As she has always said, she will proudly stand with anyone making a major commitment to serve and honor our military community and yesterday, NASCAR did just that. They paid special tribute to our veterans and military families at the championship race by donating over 5,000 tickets to military families and by honoring Sergeant Berry and his family, true American heroes. Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden enjoyed their visit to the speedway and are looking forward to working across the country to honor America’s veterans and military families.”
Garcia had been around many celebrities over the years, but the First Lady’s visit was unique.
“That was incredible to have someone of that stature to take an interest,” he said. “Basically, you’ve got the Super Bowl for NASCAR but now you have the Secret Service detail there, too. She was incredible and wanting to attend everything, wanting to attend drivers’ meetings and go into the garages. From an event organizer’s point of view, it was hard because she wanted to wander over and meet Roger Penske and meet Joey Logano, and everywhere she went, we had to secure the area first. But it’s a day I’ll never forget.”
NEW DATE MIGHT HELP DRAW MORE FANS
Although he will miss the drama of the season finale, Garcia suspects the racing will be a different kind of exciting in March. He also says it is a throwback to the original Miami Grand Prix, which was in March, sandwiched between the boat show and the Coconut Grove Art Festival.
“I think March is going to be a better date for us ultimately,” he said. “Of course, 2020 will be difficult, because we’ll have only 120 days to get ready for the next one. But I think being squarely in the middle of events for South Florida will make it easier for us to draw fans from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and North Carolina. It’s not the week before Thanksgiving, no football season. After hibernating all of January and being frosted over all of February, March you’re going to be ready to go see some warm weather.”
Homestead organizers will market the race as a Spring Break-type event. They’ve built a beach on site and will have paddleboards and kayaks to go along with the racecars.
“We’re going to make it very attractive for event-goers as well as hardcore gearhead NASCAR fans,” Garcia said.