iNSIDE SCOOP: The Final Four

It’s down to this: one race, 267 laps for all the marbles, a cool Tiffany trophy and a bunchaton of cash.

In other words, it’s one more shot at a title for a group that’s never won one.

Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Newman and Kevin Harvick will do battle in the south Florida heat to earn the NASCAR Sprint Cup trophy, based on the finishing order at Phoenix yesterday. Harvick won, dominating the duel in the desert, and Newman rooted out rookie Kyle Larson in the final two corners of the final lap to earn 11^th position and the final transfer berth.

That he knocked out sentimental favorite Jeff Gordon is interesting, but not essential. He also knocked out Brad Keselowski and Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards. That he does not yet have a victory and may not through the end of Sunday’s race is interesting.

Much has been made of the fact that leading winner this season, Keselowski with six, is not in a position to win the race. I say phooey. How many times has a football team gone into the playoffs with a gaudy record and failed to win the Super Bowl? Lots. Welcome to the new NASCAR.

It’s all about the final race, and there are four contenders for the title. Whoever has the best night wins. Pure. Plain. Simple.

No complicated scoring metrics, no “as they run now” graphics are needed. All that’s needed is the finishing order, because there aren’t any bonus points involved. It’s whoever is first to the line among those four.

So if Newman finishes the best of the four, he wins. The previous 35 races have been spent building for Sunday night in Homestead. May the best man win, and he will.

Logano has been fast all year. Harvick has been stupid fast all year. Hamlin has been getting faster as the season went on. Newman hasn’t been as fast overall as the other three, but he’s always in the top few at the end of the race. That’s something that Gordon, Keselowski, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and others can’t say.

That’s why they’re not here battling three other drivers for the title and Newman is.

Newman is like a blade. He does one thing, he does it well and you just have to accept it. The move he put on Larson in the final corners is an example. He went way down on the apron coming into Turn 3 and just matted the gas. Larson was the cushion he used to get past and gain that all-important 11^th-place finish.

“I wasn’t proud of what I had to do, but I did what I had to do as cleanly as I could do it,” Newman said. “I’m not the kind of guy to turn somebody, so I just drifted as much as I could to get in there. My Caterpillar Mining Chevy stuck on the apron and we made it.

“I guess the only mistake I made all day was showing these guys what I’ll do on the last lap when everything is on the line. I think if Kyle Larson was in my shoes, he’d have done the exact same thing. I don’t like racing that way, but there’s a lot on the line here.”

There is that. Newman is known as one of the harder drivers to pass in the sport. He fights for every spot and doesn’t let you go just because you want past. That’s created a bunch of friction over the years, but Newman has learned what works and remains true to it.

As a result, he’s here with a one-in-four shot at the title he’s always coveted.

“Just to have a shot at it (a championship) is amazing,” Newman said. “With respect to RCR and Dale Earnhardt Sr., if you’re going to follow in anybody’s footsteps and have some history, that’s the man.

“But I won’t strap into the race car thinking of that next Sunday. I’ll strap into the race car thinking about what we’ve got to do to get the Caterpillar Chevrolet into Victory Lane."

Team owner Richard Childress thinks the Intimidator would have been proud.

 “Ryan drove with his heart,” Childress said. “That is what it took to get in.”