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From 2002 all the way until 2019, the Homestead-Miami Speedway earned its place in the hearts and imaginations of generations of race fans thanks to its crowning of NASCAR champions. Many seminal and unforgettable moments, from Tony Stewart willing his way to the championship in a tiebreaker with Carl Edwards in 2011 to Jimmie Johnson becoming the third seven-time Cup champion in 2016, have taken place at this racetrack -- and today, it continues to play an important role in setting up those same sort of moments.

Homestead-Miami will be the site of the second race of the Round of 8 in the NASCAR playoffs, the 4EVER 400 presented by Mobil 1. On the surface, this race is a tribute to Kevin Harvick, who will make his final start at the track where he was crowned Cup champion in 2014 and will run the same paint scheme this weekend that propelled him to that title.

But below that surface, this race serves as a major preamble to the Cup Series championship in Phoenix, as the opportunity to join Las Vegas winner Kyle Larson -- who also happens to be this race's defending winner -- in the Championship 4 is at hand.

How to watch the NASCAR playoffs at Homestead

Date: Sunday, Oct. 22
Location: Homestead-Miami Speedway -- Homestead, Fla.
Time: 2:30 p.m. ET
TV: NBC
Stream: fubo (try for free)

What to watch

With now a full 20 years of age on its current asphalt combined with progressive banking, Homestead has long been a driver favorite thanks to how its surface allows them to slip and slide and use every inch of racetrack available to make time and race side-by-side. Of all the different lines that drivers can use, though, the greatest reward is up on the very top of the track.

Over the last several years especially, the ability to rip the high side and run just inches from the wall has proven to be a massive advantage, as the ability to run that line lap-after-lap allows drivers to sustain momentum off the corner and make up massive amounts of time lap after lap. That plays directly into the hands of drivers like Kyle Larson who thrive on running the wall -- Larson has led 529 laps in his career at Homestead, and last year he led 199 of 167 laps on his way to victory.

Considering tire wear is extremely high at Homestead and the racing has long followed suit as among the best on the circuit, Goodyear knows enough to not mess with a good thing. This weekend's Goodyear tire combination remains the same as it was for this race last year, and it'll be the fourth time it's been used overall in 2023, joining both Darlington races and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte.

News of the week

  • The biggest story in NASCAR this week concerned an extreme swing in fortunes for Ryan Blaney and his team over a 24-hour period following the end of last week's race at Las Vegas. Blaney was initially disqualified after his car failed post-race inspection for an illegal shock, but a further examination found an issue with a NASCAR template and that Blaney's car had been legal after all. As such, the penalty was overturned and Blaney's sixth-place finish at Las Vegas and all points earned were restored.
  • Former NASCAR Cup Series car owner Ron Devine was indicted Wednesday in a North Carolina court on four counts of failure to pay payroll taxes. Devine was the owner of BK Racing, which fielded Cup cars from 2012 to 2018 and was notable for helping launch the careers of drivers like Alex Bowman, Corey LaJoie and Matt DiBenedetto.
  • Former NASCAR engine builder Ron Hutter, one of the most prolific racing and mechanical minds to come out of the state of Ohio, passed away on Tuesday. Hutter was the owner of Hutter Racing Engines, which most notably helped power Dale Earnhardt Jr. to two consecutive championships in the NASCAR Busch Series in 1998 and 1999.
  • Longtime motorsports journalist Shav Glick, whose reporting for the Los Angeles Times exposed many on the West Coast to NASCAR, has been named the 2024 recipient of the 2024 Squier-Hall Award for NASCAR Media Excellence by the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Glick, who died in 2007, will be honored as part of the NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2024 induction ceremony in January.

Driver to watch

Through the first six weeks of the playoffs, Martin Truex Jr. more or less stumbled about from round to round without actually justifying his billing as the 2023 regular-season champion. Truex barely avoided elimination in the Round of 16 and then had an uninspiring Round of 12, but finally got off the schneid to begin the Round of 8 last week at Las Vegas.

A ninth-place finish marked Truex's first top 15 -- let alone his first top 10 -- since Watkins Glen all the way back in August, placing Truex two points above the cut line entering this weekend's race. That's more than notable given that it suggests Truex and his team may have turned it back on in the performance department, and it also matters considering this race last year marked a massive missed opportunity for the 2017 Cup champion.

After taking the lead late in the race, Truex was in position to earn his first win of the 2022 season and thwart what would end up being a winless year when everything went awry on the final pit stop. Truex led the field to pit road under caution, but he ended up getting spun into his pit stall in a highly unusual incident. Truex would make his way back up to sixth at the finish, but the memory of that loss no doubt still stings and will surely inform the way the No. 19 team runs this weekend.

There's due cause beyond last year to consider Truex a contender at this track. He has four top fives in his last six races at Homestead, including a win in 2017 that secured him his first Cup title.

Pick to win

Tyler Reddick (+600): As we've seen several times over the past 10 years, there's always a non-insigificant statistical chance of a driver who perhaps isn't immediately earmarked as a championship contender making it to the Championship 4. If Tyler Reddick is going to be that driver who earns his way to Phoenix in a bit of an upset, it's likely going to come down to how he responds to the opportunity he has this weekend.

Homestead suits Reddick's driving style to a T, as he ripped the wall to two-straight championships in the Xfinity Series before earning finishes of fourth and second in his first two Cup starts here. I think Reddick gets the win this weekend, puts himself in the Championship 4, and creates an enormously tense and unpredictable elimination race at Martinsville in two weeks.