NEXTEL CUP The final week of the chase

Kurt Busch leads now, but Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon aren't far behind.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Forget the math or the infinite number of potential scenarios to determine who will win NASCAR's Nextel Cup title.
There should be only one strategy for the five drivers still eligible to win the title Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway: win the race and don't worry about what the other competitors are doing.
With five racers separated by 82 points headed into the final event of NASCAR's 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup Championship, a crew chief could go mad trying to crunch the numbers to figure out what his driver has to do to win.
So why even bother?
"We'll have a 'go-for-broke' attitude," said four-time series champion Jeff Gordon. "We have nothing to lose; we'll give it everything we've got and hope to come out on top. We have to win."
Points
Kurt Busch heads into the finale with an 18-point lead over Jimmie Johnson. Gordon trails Busch by 21 points, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 72 out and Mark Martin is 82 points behind.
The race is so tight that even if Gordon wins and leads the most laps, he can still lose the title if Busch simply finishes second.
The only sure bet is Busch. If he wins the race, he wins his first series title no matter what the others do.
Under the scoring system, a win earns 180 points, a last-place finish gets 34 points and all the positions in between are staggered. Five-point bonuses are given to any driver who leads a lap, and an additional five-point bonus is awarded for leading the most laps in a race.
So if Busch wins the race, he is guaranteed 185 points. Even if Johnson, or Gordon, or anyone else finishes second and earned two bonuses -- five points for leading one lap, and five more for leading the most laps -- it would still only equal 180 points, not enough to overcome the lead Busch already has.
"I think if I'm Kurt, I would be really nervous," Earnhardt said. "He's in the situation where, you know, it's really basically up to him and his team to win or lose it."
Earnhardt and Martin have a much tougher battle ahead because, for all practical purposes, it's a three-man chase. Both of them can only hope to play the spoiler.
At 72 points back, Earnhardt needs a terrific finish and hope the three drivers ahead of him all have horrible finishes.
If Junior won the race and led the most laps, Busch would have to finish 29th or worse and not lead a lap for Earnhardt to win the title. But Earnhardt would still have to contend with Gordon and Johnson and hope both of them also finished well behind him.
'Pretty big hole'
"We dug ourselves a pretty big hole, and it will be difficult to climb out and still win this championship," Earnhardt said. "We're going to have to be the best team at Homestead as well as the luckiest."
The points scenario is similar to the 1992 race, when four drivers battled for that title.
In the season-ending event at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the late Davey Allison started with a 30-point lead over the late Alan Kulwicki. Allison was 40 points up on Bill Elliott.
Allison needed to finish sixth or better to clinch the title, but after running sixth for much of the race, he crashed with Ernie Irvan. Kulwicki and Elliott were left to decide the title, and because Kulwicki led the most laps in the race, he clinched the 10-point bonus.
Elliott won the race, Kulwicki finished second and won the title because he led a single lap more than Elliott.
It could get just as wild at Homestead.