Further, if Matt Kenseth wins at Homestead, and he and Johnson tie in the point standings, the two would also tie at the first tiebreaker level, which is the number of wins on the season; both drivers would have five.

The next tiebreaker is second-place finishes, and the advantage there would go to Johnson, who has six runner-up finishes compared to Kenseth's three.

Of the ten Chase drivers, only five now have a mathematical possibility of winning the championship. A driver is credited with 180 points for winning a race and can add five bonus points for leading a lap and five more for leading the most laps, for a maximum total of 190 points in a single race. The fewest points a driver can earn is 34 for finishing a race in last place with no bonus points. The difference between the two, 190 minus 34, is 156 - the maximum number of points a driver can earn in one race.

Since the drivers in sixth through tenth - Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton, Mark Martin, Kasey Kahne and Kyle Busch - are all more than 156 points behind Johnson, they are all mathematically eliminated from title contention.

As to who will win the championship, consider this: Kevin Harvick ranks seventh in the pre-race driver rating for Homestead, based on loop data since 2005 - making him the only driver currently in the top five who's also in the top 10 in that category. Matt Kenseth is 11th, Denny Hamlin is 40th, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 24th, and Jimmie Johnson is 28th.

What's the pre-race driver rating, you ask? It's a compilation of numerous statistics for each driver at a given track, including average start, average finish, laps led and several other categories of data.

One of my personal favorite statistical predictors, however, is the average finish at a given track, taking into consideration all the races a driver has run there. At Homestead, Harvick also leads that category among the five title contenders, with an average finish of 9.4 in five races.

Of course, statistics, while fun to ponder, are limited by their very nature in their ability to predict the future. They don't take into consideration multiple other factors that make racing truly unpredictable: Experience, momentum, confidence, desire, teamwork, knowledge, equipment, resources, and plain old luck among many others.

Paraphrasing the old saying, I guess that's what makes a NASCAR race.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.