NASCAR Tough start: Martin is 34th

All Tony Stewart has to do is finish 22nd or better, and he'll be the points champion.
HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) -- Tony Stewart made things even tougher for Mark Martin.
Winston Cup points leader Stewart qualified sixth Friday for the season-ending Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, while Martin -- the only other driver with a shot at the championship -- will start 34th in the 43-car field. Kurt Busch won the pole.
Stewart leads Martin by 89 points and can clinch his first title by finishing 22nd or better in Sunday's race, no matter what Martin does.
More bad news for Martin: Stewart won two of the three previous races at the track, after starting seventh and 13th.
"We had a good lap," Stewart said. "We're normally bad to the bone on Sunday here and our car is really, really good in race trim, so I'm pretty excited about Sunday now."
The championship chase hasn't gone down to the last race of a Winston Cup season since 1997, when Jeff Gordon beat Dale Jarrett by 14 points and Martin by 29 -- the closest three-way finish ever.
Martin's appeal
Martin, though, could get a bit of a reprieve before Sunday's race. A National Stock Car Racing Commission panel will hear an appeal of the 25-point penalty he was given for an unapproved spring on his car in the Nov. 3 race at Rockingham, N.C. The three-person panel is scheduled to meet this morning.
If Martin gets all of the 25 points back on appeal -- which is considered unlikely -- Stewart would need to finish at least 13th to take the title, regardless of where Martin places.
Asked if he were concerned about the hearing, Martin said: "I have a race to get ready for. All I can do is the same thing I've been doing every race all year, go out and try to win the race."
On Friday, he went about an hour ahead of Stewart, qualifying at 150.184 mph on the 11/2-mile oval under a glaring sun. With clouds moving in and cooling off the track a bit, Stewart took advantage with a 152.547.
Stewart loves Homestead.
"You have to use everything here, so it's perfect for me," he said. "It's really dependent on handling, more than horsepower. It's whoever gets their car driving the best and who does the best job of saving the tires all day."
Martin's car was among the fastest in testing here two weeks ago. He was upset by his poor qualifying lap.
"It was terrible," he said. "We weren't prepared for sun like this."
Still, Martin certainly wasn't conceding the title to Stewart.
Quotable
"We've got a great race car for the race and this is just one part of it," Martin said.
Busch, Martin's teammate, turned in a lap at 154.365 mph, considerably better than the 153.881 for second-fastest Dale Earnhardt Jr.
It was the second career pole for Busch and his first since September 2001, in Darlington.
"I knew we had some clouds coming and we had a decent spot in the qualifying," Busch said. "Fridays have been the worst day for me, trying to get a pole, trying to qualify well, trying to make sure we got a good pit selection."
Busch is a distant third in the points standings. Four-time series champion Gordon, rookie Jimmie Johnson, Rusty Wallace and rookie Ryan Newman are close behind.
"It's just drama left and right for us," Busch said. "We're not going to get on the defensive side this weekend. We have to keep putting offense down and make sure those other guys are behind us at the end on Sunday."
Gordon had a terrible day, missing the top 36 in speed and having to use a provisional start for the first time in 329 career races.
Johnson was 16th, while Wallace, who needs a victory Sunday to keep his string of winning at least one race in each of the last 16 seasons, qualified 18th.
Jimmy Spencer, driving his last race for Target/Chip Ganassi Racing, qualified third at 152.862, followed by Joe Nemechek and Greg Biffle, the new Busch series champion who will be a contender for top rookie in 2003.