Ford Championship Weekend - History

History

After the 2001 NASCAR season came to an end, the organization decided to realign its three major series' schedules so all three of its series ended its season at the same track in the same weekend. Homestead-Miami Speedway had been on the NASCAR schedule since 1995, when the then-Busch Series added it to its schedule as its final race of the season. Between then and 2001, it was the only series that ended its season at the track. Traditionally, the Truck Series had ended its season in the western United States, with Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Auto Club Speedway, and Phoenix International Raceway serving as the location for the finale since the series began racing in 1995. Homestead was added to the schedule in 1996, often serving as an accompanying race to the Indy Racing League's early season stop at the track (the Truck Series and the IRL IndyCar Series have shared race weekends frequently since both series were founded in 1995, but it is not as common as it once was).

After four Busch Series races and three Truck Series races, NASCAR added a Cup Series race at Homestead for the 1999 season. The track was given the penultimate race of the season, which preceded the then-traditional series finale race, Atlanta Motor Speedway's NAPA 500. The Pennzoil 400, as the race was originally known, was run for three years as the scheduled second-to-last Winston Cup event (the 2001 race, where NASCAR was forced to run the New Hampshire 300 on Thanksgiving weekend due to 9/11, was the only one that wasn't actually run as the second-to-last race of the year).

For 2012, Ford has altered the names for each race to promote its EcoBoost engines. The weekend starts with the Ford EcoBoost 200 Truck race run on Friday night, then continues with the Ford EcoBoost 300 for the Nationwide series cars on Saturday afternoon. The Ford EcoBoost 400, the last race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, is run on Sunday and is the final race of the NASCAR season. After each race, an official ceremony is conducted where the points leader in each series is given the trophy for winning the series championship. If a driver has already clinched the series championship entering the race weekend, an informal ceremony is conducted during the postrace festivities of the clinching race.

After Homestead installed lights after the 2004 season, the scheduling for the races changed. The Ford 200 Truck Series race was moved to Friday night from its Friday afternoon timeslot and has been run there ever since. The start times were adjusted for the Ford 300 and Ford 400 as well, as both races had their start times moved to late afternoon so they could finish under the lights. While the Ford 300 continues to be run in the late afternoon, NASCAR adopted uniform start times for its afternoon and evening Cup Series races for 2010 (except for the Coca-Cola 600) and the start time for the Ford 400 was moved back to 1 PM. The 2011 Ford 400 returned to a late afternoon start, but the 2012 Ford EcoBoost 400 will move back to the early afternoon.

In the history of Ford Championship Weekend, there have been four occasions where a series points leader has not been able to retain his lead following the race. The first two occurrences happened during the Ford 200 Truck Series race. In 2003, Brendan Gaughan crashed out of the event late, finished 29th, and fell from first to fourth in the standings while Travis Kvapil won the championship. In 2007, Ron Hornaday and Mike Skinner were separated by 29 points going into the race, but points leader Skinner had a problem with one of his truck's tires and axles and finished 35th. Hornaday finished seventh and won the title by 54 points. In 2010, 46 points separated first place Denny Hamlin, second place Jimmie Johnson, and third place Kevin Harvick in the Sprint Cup standings. At various times in the Ford 400 each driver held the points lead, but in the end Johnson clinched his fifth consecutive Sprint Cup championship by finishing second in the race. Hamlin fell to third place, 39 points behind Johnson, with his 14th place finish. Harvick, who finished third, finshed 2nd in points just 4 points behind johnson. In 2011 Tony Stewart entered the race three points behind Carl Edwards for the Sprint Cup lead. Stewart won the Ford 400 with Edwards finishing second and the points race ended in a tie. However, due to Stewart holding more victories than Edwards over the course of the season (Stewart's win gave him five while Edwards only won once), Stewart won the tiebreaker and became series champion for a third time.

With his 2011 championship, Stewart also set several milestones. He became the second driver to win the Chase for the Cup multiple times, with the championship being his second since the Chase was founded in 2004. Stewart was also the first driver to win a title other than Johnson since 2005, ending his streak of five consecutive championships. In addition, he became the first driver in the Chase era to win the final race and the championship in the same weekend (Kyle Busch, who clinched the 2009 Nationwide Series championship and won the Ford 300, is the only other driver to do that). Stewart also won the first championship for an owner-driver since Alan Kulwicki won the 1992 Winston Cup Championship driving for AK Racing. (Stewart is majority owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, which he bought into in 2009 after leaving Joe Gibbs Racing.)

Since the debut of Ford Championship Weekend, there have been six occasions where a series points championship was already clinched. Greg Biffle was the first driver to enter the weekend after having clinched a championship, as he won the 2002 Busch Series championship prior to the Ford 300. Since then, four more Busch/Nationwide drivers (Martin Truex, Jr., Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards), and Brad Keselowski), one Cup driver (Matt Kenseth), and two Truck Series drivers (Ron Hornaday and Todd Bodine) have clinched titles prior to the final race. 2010 marked the first time since Ford Championship Weekend was launched that two of the three major series' championships were clinched prior to the weekend, by virtue of Brad Keselowski clinching his championship with two races to go in the Nationwide Series season and Todd Bodine clinching his with one race to go in the Truck Series season. Bodine's 2010 championship marks the first time in the history of Ford Championship Weekend that the Truck Series championship has been decided prior to the final race in two consecutive years; the Busch/Nationwide Series is the only other series to have that distinction as Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards both clinched their respective series championships before the Ford 300 in 2006 and 2007.

Several drivers have won more than one race held during this weekend. Todd Bodine, Greg Biffle, Kyle Busch, and Carl Edwards are the only drivers to win the same event more than once, while Busch and Edwards are the only two drivers to win multiple races in the same weekend. Bodine won the Ford 200 truck race in 2005 and 2008, while Busch won the Ford 300 in 2009 and 2010, Biffle won the Ford 400 in 2004, 2005, and 2006, and Edwards won the Ford 400 in 2008 and 2010. Edwards won the Ford 300 and Ford 400 in 2008 and Busch won the Ford 200 and 300 in 2010. In his two wins Busch accomplished a rare feat in that he clinched multiple owners' championships with his wins. His victory in the Ford 200 won Busch the Truck Series owners' championship for his own team, Kyle Busch Motorsports, while his 13th victory of the season in the #18 Joe Gibbs Racing Nationwide Series car clinched the series' owners' championship for JGR. (Busch did not win the drivers' championship, as he had not run the full schedule and it had been clinched before the Ford 300 even if he had, but despite only running 28 races his 13 wins helped propel him to a third place finish in the final standings. It should also be noted that Busch was one of three drivers that season who finished in the top ten without running a full schedule; his teammate Joey Logano finished eighth while only running 25 races and Kevin Harvick finished sixth with only 28 races under his belt. Further, this was the last year that NASCAR allowed drivers to earn points in multiple series as a rule was implemented for 2011 in which a driver had to declare which series he would race in for points, although he could continue to run in other series and accumulate owner points for his team.)

Besides the drivers listed above, several others have won more than one event in Ford Championship Weekend during their racing careers. Kasey Kahne won the 2003 Ford 300 and the 2004 Ford 200, Matt Kenseth won the Ford 300 in 2006 and the Ford 400 in 2007, and Kevin Harvick won the 2004 Ford 300 and the 2009 Ford 200. Jeff Gordon won the Miami 300 Nationwide race in his last start in that division in 2000 and the Ford EcoBoost 400 in 2012, unfortunately back in 2000 only the Nationwide and Sprint Cup raced that weekend and it wasn't the final race(s) of the season and the Truck race was held earlier in the year.