HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Today ends what has been one of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s most frustrating seasons. Although he comes into today's race at Homestead-Miami Speedway 24th in the points, he's not ready for the season to end.

"I wouldn't declare this my worst season,'' Earnhardt said.

"It's been hard. This is our worst season statistically.

"I want to keep racing because I think we need more racing. We're not good as a team yet. We need to race more. We don't need to say, "All right, let's get this year over with and get ready for next year.'

"We need to race more, so I wish the year wasn't over, but, unfortunately, it is and we have to try during the offseason to fix what we can without being able to go to the race track and seeing if that's working. Hopefully, when we show up at Daytona that we've made the right calls.''

Heat of the moment

Tony Stewart said his sharp criticism of Dale Earnhardt Jr. after Earnhardt's spin last weekend at Phoenix, which collected several cars, including Stewart, was a "heat of the moment'' statement.

Stewart criticized Earnhardt's driving abilities while speaking on the radio to his team after the incident.

"Everybody knows when we are in the heat of the moment, it doesn't matter who it was, I would have said the same thing,'' Stewart said Saturday.

"It was being upset because we are running for all the points we can get right now and we took a hit in the points last week because of the incident.''

Free agent market

Kasey Kahne and Kevin Harvick will be among the top free agents after next season. Harvick made his unhappiness about Richard Childress Racing's performance known earlier this season, as has Kahne with Richard Petty Motorsports.

Kahne said this weekend that he's unsure what will happen beyond next year.

"I used to try and stay in the loop [with management] and then things don't happen that they say will,'' Kahne said of RPM officials. "It's up to them what happens. All I can do is make myself better at driving race cars and communicating with [crew chief] Kenny Francis.

"Come January, I can start looking around, I can talk to other people. The ups and downs of the team has made it difficult for me to really say, "Man, I'm going to be here for 10 more years.' I really don't know what's going to happen.''

Another driver who could be a free agent after next year is Kyle Busch, but he's expected to sign an extension with Joe Gibbs Racing and that could be done shortly.

Streaking

Greg Biffle enters today's race with one final chance to extend his streak of at least one win a season to seven. Homestead is a good place for Biffle's final stand. He's won three races at this track.

"It makes me hurt to think about how many we've come close to -- running out of gas at Michigan, and stopping on the air hose at California ... there's been about four or five; Kansas, we took four tires instead of two and [Tony Stewart] beat us,'' Biffle said. "It's been very difficult. But they're not easy to win, either, and it would be very disappointing to go a season without winning a race since I've been able to win every year.''

Divided loyalties

Juan Pablo Montoya says one of his son's favorite drivers is Kyle Busch.

"If you go look by my motorhome, I just got an M&M hood that I'm going to put in his room,'' Montoya said of Busch's sponsor.

"I have to put a Target one as well. It's incredible. When Kyle drives the Nationwide car, he knows what car it is. When he drives a truck, he knows. It's kind of freaky.''

Pit stops

Jeff Burton was the fastest in Saturday's final practice session with a lap of 165.736 mph. He was followed by teammate Kevin Harvick (165.375 mph), Mark Martin (165.067), Martin Truex (165.022) and Ryan Newman (165.604). Points leader Jimmie Johnson was seventh fastest with a top lap of 164.534 mph.