Heavenly Homestead: It all came together at right time for NASCAR
I finally think this past weekend that the Good Lord became a NASCAR fan.
To be honest, when I was headed down to Homestead, Fla., for the final race weekend in all our three major touring series, I had real doubts whether we were going to get any of the races in based on the weather forecasts. It was one of the worst weekend forecasts I had ever seen.
Thankfully, despite a little delay here and there, we got all the events in and crowned all three of our 2015 champions. Now other than the various award ceremonies where NASCAR passes out the hardware and the checks, the 2015 NASCAR season is officially in the books.
I continue to say that Homestead-Miami Speedway is one of the best tracks we go to for some awesome racing. Whether it's the way the banking as progressed, which it's the track configuration, whether it's the age of the surface or the sum of all the parts, I think everyone truly looks forward to going and racing at the 1.5 mile track.
I went down for the race weekend, actually thinking that no matter which of the final four drivers won the championship, that it probably wasn't necessary for them to win the race.
It was only when we got that last caution with 11 laps to go and went back racing with only seven laps remaining, I said to myself then that one of them was going to have to win the race to win the championship.
Kyle Busch, of course, went on to win the race and the championship with Kevin Harvick finishing second.
I said it last week that no matter which of the four drivers won the championship, there wasn't a bad storyline among them. To see what Kyle Busch did, to me is the comeback of 2015, not just in motorsports, but in all professional sports. For anyone to deny that Kyle should have been a championship contender, well honestly, I have nothing left to say to those people.
I mean here was a guy that missed 11 races with one broken leg and the foot on his other leg broken nine months ago. Kyle went on to win five races this season and is now our reigning 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion. I don't think anyone or anything should dilute that.
Overall I thought we had an awesome final race of the season. There were so many different drivers who we thought for a while were going to be "the guy."
At the start, we thought it was going to be Joey Logano. Then at one point it looked like Jeff Gordon's night. Then here came Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski -- but when it was all said and done, there stood Kyle Busch as the race and series champion.
Congratulations to all three of our major touring season champions. I know all three will represent our sport extremely well. While I know everyone is sad to see the 2015 NASCAR Season come to an end, I say take heart, because there's only three months left until the 2016 NASCAR season gets under way!
