BUSCH FACES TOUGH ROAD TO TITLE.

Byline: TIM HADDOCK Motor Sports

Kurt Busch is really going to have to earn his first NASCAR Nextel Cup championship.

He has to finish second or better at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday to secure NASCAR's top prize. Given his history at Homestead, finishing second is no easy task.

The inaugural Chase for the Championship has produced the tightest race in NASCAR Cup history. Busch holds an 18-point edge over Jimmie Johnson with one race to go, and the three drivers behind them remain alive in the Chase.

Even Tony Stewart, sitting in sixth and 185 points out of first, has the longest of shots to win the title. Of course, he needs to win the race and have the five drivers ahead of him fail to qualify.

Too bad for Stewart. He is the only Cup driver to have won more than once at Miami, and his Joe Gibbs Racing team has won three of the five Cup races at the Florida speedway.

Here is a look at what the top five drivers need to do, and how they have fared, at Homestead-Miami Speedway, site of Sunday's season finale.

1. Kurt Busch: Busch is the only driver among the Chase contenders - Stewart aside - with a victory at Miami. That came in 2002. That's the good news. In his other three races at Miami, he has finished no higher than 19th. Still, Busch has a pretty nice cushion. Johnson essentially needs to finish three places ahead of Busch to pass him and win the championship.

``No matter what the outcome is on Sunday, we've brought our team to this level, we've had a tremendous amount of fun being able to compete like this,'' said Busch, driver of the No. 97 Ford for Roush Racing. ``If we win the championship, that is the absolute optimum goal. If we come up just a bit short, that doesn't really matter to us. We're having fun doing it.''

2. Jimmie Johnson: If Johnson can post his fifth win in the past six races - and every indication is that his team will settle for nothing less - then Busch needs to finish fourth or worse for Johnson to win the title. His best finish at Miami came last year when he was third. He finished in the top 10 his other two races at Miami.

``The position we're in, we've raced our way back into this championship chase,'' said Johnson, driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. ``On our side, we've had some fortunate breaks; some other teams have had some trouble. We just have to keep racing hard. If we do our job Sunday afternoon, and race to the best of our ability, we may be the champion.''

3. Jeff Gordon: The four-time Cup champion needs to finish a spot ahead of his teammate Johnson and five places ahead of Busch to win his fifth Cup title. At Miami, Gordon's average finish has been 11th, and he has two top-fives in five races.

``So I feel like (Busch) knows that the pressure is on,'' said Gordon, driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. ``He knows that we're breathing right down his neck, and that we're racing for wins, and we got Jimmie who is winning races and me who has led laps and had a shot at winning the last couple.

``That's a good place for us to be in, but I'd still rather be leading the points. I think that (Busch is) feeling the pressure, and I think he'll do a good job with that. I don't know. It's hard to say. I think we'll all find out how well he handles it this weekend.''

4. Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Things don't look good for Junior. Sitting 72 points out of first, he needs to finish 29 places ahead of Busch and at least that far ahead of Johnson and Gordon to win the title. He has never run well at Miami. His best finish was 13th, and that was three years ago. Recent tests at the track haven't given him much hope for improvement.

``Reality of the situation is, you know, we didn't run good there last year,'' said Earnhardt Jr., driver of the No. 8 Chevrolet for Dale Earnhardt Inc. ``The test wasn't a 100 percent success. ...

``I don't live in a dream world. I know what the facts are. We've just got to figure out how to get a better race car before the race starts because, frankly, I think we don't have what it takes right now, as far as the way the test went. The car doesn't drive exactly the way I want it to. We've got to work really hard during the practice sessions and try to get the car right.''

5. Mark Martin: In five races at Miami, Martin has posted three top-five finishes. He'll need another if he wants any chance of catching and passing Earnhardt Jr., Gordon, Johnson and Busch. He needs to finish 31 places ahead of Busch and have the other three finish behind Busch to win the title. At least the four-time runner-up probably won't add another second-place finish in the Cup race to his resume.

``For me, we're in really, really good position because we've had such a fantastic year after a disappointing year last year,'' said Martin, driver of the No. 6 Ford for Roush Racing. ``For us, this is all a bonus, just to be a part of it and to be running so well. I'm just tickled to death to be in this thing and to be a contender. We're going to go to Homestead and race for a win. That's what we did last week at Darlington.

``It was a lot of pressure for us to get into the Chase from where we were. That's where the really, really high pressure was for us. The toughest part of the season was the first 26 races, especially leaving Daytona.''

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