Stewart

"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like Homestead."

Stewart and the No. 20 Home Depot Pontiac are undefeated in the first two Winston Cup races ever held at the 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami Speedway oval just south of Miami. He's hoping to make it three-in-a-row in Sunday's Pennzoil 400.

And if past performance -- both in recent weeks on the Cup circuit and the last two races at Homestead -- is any indication, the trophy maker may as well start inscribing Stewart's name on the race championship trophy now, in preparation for Sunday's celebration in the winner's circle.

Stewart has been on a tear of late, with nine top-10 finishes in his last 10 starts, as he's methodically climbed upward in the Winston Cup standings. He currently sits in third place, 401 points behind points leader Jeff Gordon and 75 points behind second-place Ricky Rudd.

While his late-season burst has been commendable, it's too little, too late for Stewart as Gordon could clinch the championship in Sunday's race. But that doesn't mean Stewart can't still make a run in the three remaining races on the schedule to overtake Rudd and finish the season in second, which would be his best finish in three campaigns on the Winston Cup circuit (4th in 1999 and 6th in 2000).

"Where we're at in the points we can at least stay there or possibly gain that last spot in front of us," Stewart says optimistically.

Stewart's showing in the last 2½ months, along with three wins this season and his track record at Homestead, once again make him this weekend's favorite.

"The odds of winning two races in a row at a track that you only run once a year are hard, let alone winning three in a row. But we've got a great team and we had a good test there (three weeks ago, right after Stewart finished second at Talladega). We used our last test of the year at Homestead, and the reason we did that was to try to keep that competitive edge that we've had there.

"The odds are against us on winning three in a row, but I feel like we've got a great Home Depot Pontiac and a great team. And Homestead is a track where I feel like I've got, not a secret, but a good niche of getting around."

His past success and desire to three-peat is one of the main reasons Stewart and his team spent not one, but two days testing there after a very rough race at Talladega, where Stewart finished runner-up to Dale Earnhardt Jr.

"I feel like we had another good test down there at Homestead," Stewart said. "We tested there before last year's race and that helped a lot. During this year's test we found the tire to be extremely tricky, but it always seems to be that way. Wherever we've gone this year it's been tricky. I feel like it was definitely a worthwhile test and a great place to use that last test up, considering what we learned there."

In a sense, Stewart feels there are a lot of similarities between Homestead and perhaps his favorite track of all, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, even though IMS is a mile longer.

"I would say it's somewhat similar to Indianapolis, but the corners at Homestead seem like they're twice as long," Stewart said. "You're in the corner a long time at Homestead and you're on the straightaways a long time. It's a pretty big racetrack. Having the corners as flat as they are and as long as they are makes for a big challenge in getting your car to drive well there.

"The biggest thing is that it's hard to make the car turn there. Then if you get the car turning well, you need to make sure it gets up off the corner. Those seem to be the two biggest challenges. If you can get the car to come off the corner well, then normally you're a little bit tight in the center. But if you can get it to turn well through the corner, then normally it's a little loose off. Trying to make the car turn and go forward at the same time is tough because the corners are so big."

Testing at Homestead prior to the last two races there has obviously paid big dividends for Stewart. With the team's most recent test there three weeks ago, things are certainly shaping up for what could very well be a Tony three-peat.

"We just looked at places where we thought we needed to run better and get our confidence up, whether it be Tony's or mine or the team's," said Stewart's crew chief, Greg Zipadelli. "We wanted to have something in the bank at those places.

"It's tough because everybody's tired and it's hard to get excited about dragging yourself around the country, but it is important. It seems like wherever we test, it really helps Tony because he carries a lot of confidence back into that racetrack just because he's comfortable. He's already got some laps there.

"Take Homestead, where if we hadn't tested it would've been over a year since he was last there. But because we tested, we'll unload and probably be a lot better, just because we'll already know what Tony's feeling and looking for inside that race car."