#16-Greg Biffle took the lead late, with 8 laps to go and won the FORD 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway by mere inches over #6-Mark Martin for his 6th win of the season and 9th of his career. Points leader #20-Tony Stewart finished 15th and won the 2005 Nextel Cup Championship over Biffle and #99-Carl Edwards by 35 points. Biffle gets the 2nd spot as he has 6 wins to Edwards 4. It is Stewarts 2nd Nextel Cup Championship, he won in 2002, becoming the 14th driver to win mulitple championships. Stewart’s take for 1st place is $5,849,800. #17-Matt Kenseth was 3rd, followed by #99-Carl Edwards [Rosuh got the 1st four spots] and #41-Casey Mears, who was 3 seconds in the lead with 15 laps to go when a caution came of for debris when a spring rubber fell out of someone car and was in the groove. 2nd in points going into the race, #48-Jimmie Johnson had a right rear tire going down, stayed out too long and it popped and sent Johnson into the wall and out of the race and The Chase, dropping him to 5th in the points. There were 21 lead changes among 12 drivers with #99-Edwards leading the most laps with 94 and Mears with 75. Biffle on lead 9 laps, including the final 8. There were 8 cautions for 37 laps which allowed for a new race record speed of 131.431mph. #7-Robby Gordon jumped in the #7 without any track time all weekend and finished 14th. #5-Kyle Busch had trouble early and finished 41st with a DNF, but easily won the 2005 Raybestos Rookie of the Year Award.
For my race rundown, laps led, DNF’s, caution info, Lucky Dogs and some notes, see my Homestead Race Info/Rundown Page.
For race results and awards, and other site links, see my Jayski’s Homestead Race Results/Awards page.(11-20-2005)
