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Homestead isn’t just the home of the Sprint Cup championship. It’s the Gateway to the Keys!

That makes it just about as weird as Martinsville, Virginia, or Long Pond, Pennsylvania, but in terms of places for stock cars to race, it’s the weirdest.

Naturally, I love it.

I’ve commuted both from Miami to the north and the Upper Keys to the south. Miami has people who speak English to me but seldom to one another. Miami Beach has nightlife for people more beautiful than I. I always enjoyed the Keys more.

A couple times I spent a few days afterwards in Key West, but the final race bumps up against Thanksgiving, which is a requirement for graduation back home, and it was always difficult to swing, particularly as air travel became less and less reliable.

But enough of the Keys and its great seafood, relaxed atmosphere, and roosters and chrome people wandering through the streets of Key West, where it’s rather difficult not to drink and where I almost got busted for playing my guitar without a permit.

The racing all comes down to this. Four drivers – Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson and Joey Logano – will race other primarily and 36 others secondarily for the Sprint Cup and an undisclosed array of riches in front of an undisclosed crowd.

On NBC.

Johnson has won six titles. Busch won the last one. Edwards came as close as anyone can. Logano is somehow overdue at age 26. They represent, in order, the states of California, Nevada, Missouri and Connecticut.

Their salsa was made in New York City.

Not a bad quartet. Probably about as just as this format allows.

Meanwhile, here at the house, I’ll paraphrase Charlie Daniels and sit right here and let them show me how it’s done. The moon has been close to the earth this week. I’m not sure about the devil in the house of the rising sun.

The Chase finals have four drivers, three teams and three makes. Edwards and Busch compete for Joe Gibbs in Toyotas, Johnson for Rick Hendrick in a Chevy and Logano for Roger Penske in a Ford. The home team – it’s Ford Championship Weekend and the Ford EcoBoost 400 – hasn’t won a Chase since another Busch, Kurt, captured the first in 2004.

Give a six-time champ, Johnson, one race to beat three others, when the all-time record for titles is seven, and he’s got to be the favorite.

Give four drivers, with 14 victories this year and 162 combined in their careers, one race to win a championship, and anything can happen. It’s not a stretch to see any of the four win it.

That’s why God invented game shows, circuses, wrestling matches and roulette wheels.