In the world of big-time stock-car racing, little happens by accident. Everything from sponsorship deals to a car's paint scheme is coolly calculated to guarantee the biggest, most beneficial public relations boost possible.
And so it is with NASCAR's four-day Championship Weekend, which begins Thursday at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Fla. For the first time, all three of NASCAR's premier circuits - the Winston Cup, Grand National and Truck series - will end their seasons at the same track.
The hope was that all three points titles would be decided on the same weekend.
"That's what we want,'' says Kevin Triplett, NASCAR's managing director of business operations. "It's designed to go down to the last race. Every sport does things to make its sport more interesting. It's not always going to be what we want, but over the years the majority of times it will go down to the last weekend.''
In two of the three series - Grand National driver Greg Biffle can relax after clinching the title at Phoenix last weekend - that's exactly what will happen this year. Winston Cup driver Tony Stewart leads Mark Martin by just 89 points coming into Homestead, where he's won two of the three races held there. If Stewart finishes 22nd or better in Sunday's race, the title is his, no matter what Martin does.
Martin, who has never won a title but has finished second three times, has avoided questions about the points race recently, but car owner Jack Roush said his driver is feeling the pressure.
"I'm just trying to keep Mark focused,'' he said. "Mark, from time to time, gets down on himself to the point of destruction, to the point of not being productive. It would be great if he could win another race. It would be great if he could close on Tony, but Tony definitely has the edge.''
And Stewart, too, is feeling the pressure, says Jeff Gordon, a four-time Winston Cup champion.
"This week, if I were Tony, I wouldn't open a newspaper. I wouldn't watch a TV,'' Gordon said. "I'd go away and maybe spend some time with my team, pump them up. And I'd just go to Homestead and run my race.''
That's what Truck series driver Rick Crawford plans to do. In that series, only 71 points separate three drivers - points leader Mike Bliss, Crawford and Ted Musgrave.
Tony Stewart, in the No. 20 Home Depot car, leads the pack on a restart en route to winning the 1999 Pennzoil 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
"This race is probably the most important race of my career so far,'' says Crawford, who has started 148 Truck series races but made it to the winner's circle just once - at Homestead-Miami in 1998.
"It's been a good track for us. We've been really competitive down there. That (1998) race just happened to be a perfect day for us. And I can't wait to win again.''
Close, pressure-packed finishes are nothing new for NASCAR. This will be the 19th time since 1975 that the Winston Cup championship will be determined on the final weekend. The Truck series title has gone down to the last race six times in its eight-year history, and four of the last six Grand National championships have been decided on the last weekend of the season.
Drivers appear to support concluding all three series at one spot on the same weekend.
"I think it's good for NASCAR, and it's good for the fans,'' says driver Jack Sprague, a three-time Truck series winner who also has raced on the Grand National and Winston Cup circuits. "They get to see champions crowned in all three series.''
And fans can expect more tripleheaders next season.
Although staging three races at the same track on the same weekend isn't the norm for NASCAR - it has never happened at Homestead, for instance - there have been nine tripleheaders this season, and 12 are scheduled for 2003.
All of which should benefit the Truck series.
"We've found that with the exposure the Truck series gets, people are finding out it often is the most exciting race of the three series,'' Gray says.
The crowds at Homestead have come to expect big races, if not championships. Two of the last three Winston Cup titles were decided at the track, with Bobby Labonte clinching in 2000 and Dale Jarrett in 1999.
"It's going to be a great week,'' says Curtis Gray, president of Homestead-Miami Speedway. "But there's a lot of responsibility that goes with that.''
Atlanta has been scheduled as the final stop for the Winston Cup series the past 15 years, but weather has been a frequent problem there. Homestead, which has played host to the second-to-last event on the schedule since joining the circuit in 1999, offered an alternate site that required little change to the rest of the calendar.
The chief weather concern at Homestead most years has been wind.
"The wind blows 40 mph at 6 in the morning, it seems, and you have hurricane winds all day long,'' Stewart said.
But you can race in the wind.
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