Random thoughts and notes heading to Homestead

In the five months since this blog was born, I've focused mostly on the racing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series. As much as I wanted to avoid information overload, there are three different championships set to be decided starting Friday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

First up, as always, is the Camping World Truck Series Ford EcoBoost 200 (8 p.m. ET, Fox Sports 1). Matt Crafton took himself out of the chase for a three-peat with a 23rd-place finish at Phoenix, his second bad run in four weeks (24th at Talladega). As a result, a five-win season will fall short of the big prize.

That means the race for the title is down to Erik Jones and Tyler Reddick, who fall short of Crafton in age combined (both drivers are 19, Crafton is 39), but not in experience. Jones has three wins on the season (Iowa, Canadian Tire, Texas 2), while Reddick has two (Daytona, Dover). It will take a pretty big collapse for Jones to surrender the crown as he enjoys a 19-point lead on Reddick heading to Friday night.

As long as Jones doesn't mess up and keeps his finish out of the 20s, he'll be the champ. Reddick has some seriously long odds. After finishing 23rd at Gateway 14 races ago, Jones has been in the top 10 ever since.

That's called getting it done.

On the XFINITY side Saturday for the Ford EcoBoost 300 (2:45 p.m. ET, NBC), the situation is similar for points leader Chris Buescher. All he has to do is stay clean and he'll unseat defending champion Chase Elliott.

Right now, Buescher's margin over Elliott is 18 points. The native Texan has two wins on the year (Iowa 1, Dover 1) and hasn't finished worse than 20th (Richmond 1) all season. Like Reddick, Elliott's odds of claiming his second series crown before heading to Jeff Gordon's No. 24 car at Hendrick Motorsports are very long.

Over the last 10 XFINITY races (Road America), Elliott's average finish is 8.5. That's impressive, but in the same stretch, Buescher's average is 7.4. For a Roush Fenway Racing camp that's been struggling on the Sprint Cup side for a couple of years, the effort by Buescher is a big-time feather in the cap and provides some hope for the future.

And on the NHRA side, the remaining series champions were crowned last weekend in Pomona, Calif. Del Worsham held off Jack Beckman to win the Funny Car title, and Andrew Hines grabbed the crown in Pro Stock Motorcycle.

Worsham's feat was historic in that he became only the third driver to win titles in both Funny Car and Top Fuel (Kenny Bernstein, Gary Scelzi). Worsham won the Top Fuel crown in 2011.

Hines clinched his crown by reaching the semifinals before teammate Eddie Krawiec beat him. Krawiec went on to beat Matt Smith in the final and win the event.

Followers and comments welcome on Twitter @Tomzsports.