NASCAR Chase of 2005 was far more serene

Tony Stewart caught a break with a caution flag and he eventually worked his way into 15th.
HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) -- There was no last-lap drama in this Chase.
The second year of NASCAR's playoff-style title format was far more serene -- some might say boring -- than the inaugural edition.
But then, last year was a tough act to follow.
In 2004, the 10-man, 10-race Chase for the championship went down the way NASCAR intended: to the final lap of the final race, with Kurt Busch holding off Jimmie Johnson by eight points and Jeff Gordon by 16, the closest two- and three-way finishes in series history.
This time, Tony Stewart appeared to be cruising. He went into Sunday's season-ending Ford 400 knowing that no matter what his pursuers did, the Nextel Cup was his with a finish of ninth or better.
No sweat, right?
Well, maybe a little more than met the eye.
Scary start
Stewart, who had finished ninth or better in 19 of the previous 21 races, got off to a scary start Friday when he spun during the opening practice on the 1.5-mile Homestead oval.
He kept the car off the wall, but Stewart said the incident "broke my confidence, not knowing why I spun."
It also left a huge question mark on the engine in the No. 20 Chevrolet. Did Stewart overrev it? Was it damaged in any way? Should the team change it before qualifying?
Changing engines during the weekend is a no-no; even if it's done out of necessity, the penalty is getting bumped to the back of the field. But it could be a lot worse if a team changes engines to gain an advantage.
"It was a gut-wrenching decision," NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said Monday. "The team couldn't find any damage and neither could NASCAR, but the team asked us what the options were.
"If they didn't change the engine and something was damaged, that could have cost Stewart the championship. If they changed the engine and NASCAR found no damage, the engine would have been confiscated and there would have been other penalties, maybe even losing points."
Pre-race margin
The decision was to keep the engine in the car and, on Saturday, Stewart qualified a very pedestrian 20th. He entered Sunday with 52 points in hand over Johnson, 87 over Carl Edwards and 102 over Greg Biffle.
"We didn't know that the changes we made on Friday were going to be good enough for [Sunday]," he said. "In all reality, it wasn't a stellar weekend for the No. 20 team."
What's more, at one point, Edwards was in the lead and dominating -- and Stewart was within seconds of going a lap down. Had that happened, there's no telling how this Chase might have shaken out.
But Stewart caught a break: A caution flag, brought out for debris on the track, kept him with the leaders and he eventually soldiered on to a 15th-place finish.
Johnson crashed out early with a blown tire, and that was good enough to take the title by 35 points over both race-winner Biffle and fourth-place finisher Edwards.
Not exactly a thrilling finish, but good enough for Stewart.
"To do the things we had to do with the pressure we had on us, all in all, after what I did to us on Friday, it turned out to be a pretty good weekend."
And Biffle was left wondering what might have been.