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11/02/2011 - Fort Worth, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Series: NASCAR Nationwide. Date: Saturday, November 5. Race: O'Reilly Auto Parts Challenge. Site: Texas Motor Speedway. Track: 1.5-mile oval. Start time: 12:55 p.m. (et). Laps: 200. Miles: 300. 2010 Winner: Carl Edwards. Television: ESPN 2. Radio: Performance Racing Network (PRN)/SIRIUS NASCAR Satellite.
After a two-week break, the Nationwide Series begins its three-race sprint to the finish, beginning with this weekend's 300-mile event at Texas Motor Speedway.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. presently holds a 15-point lead over second-place Elliott Sadler. Third-place Aric Almirola is a distant 87 points behind.
When the series last competed on October 14 at Charlotte, Sadler's fourth- place run allowed him to shave five points off of Stenhouse's lead. Stenhouse finished ninth.
"The biggest things that I think we, as a race team, worry about are the things you can't really control on the weekend," Stenhouse Jr. said. "Now that we have the lead, we've prided ourselves the whole time on not making mistakes."
Stenhouse has finished eighth and 11th in the last two races at Texas. Sadler placed fifth here earlier this year. It was the first time Sadler had competed in a Nationwide event at this track since November 2007.
"We had a great race there back in the spring with a top-five finish," Sadler said. "With only three races left to go for the Nationwide Series championship, it's now or never for us. We feel good about our team, about our car and about our plan to battle for this championship. Texas is a track that I've had success at in the past, including a win in the Cup Series back in 2004."
Seven Sprint Cup Series regulars are competing in this race, including David Ragan, who is making his first Nationwide start since November 2009 at Phoenix. Ragan is scheduled to drive the No.08 Ford for Randy Hill Racing.
Now that her IndyCar obligations have concluded, Danica Patrick will resume her Nationwide schedule at Texas. Patrick will also compete at Phoenix next week and the season-finale at Homestead later this month. She is running a full-time schedule in Nationwide and a partial one in Sprint Cup next year.
Kenny Wallace is expected to make series history at Texas with his record 520th career start. Wallace will surpass Jason Keller for most starts in NASCAR's second-tier circuit.
"When I was a little kid growing up in Arnold, Missouri, if you would have told me that I would be able to race in NASCAR my whole life, I would have considered that wishful thinking and a dream; therefore, my 520th NASCAR Nationwide start will be a dream come true," Wallace said.
It will be a bittersweet weekend for Wallace though. His father, Russ Wallace, passed away last weekend at the age of 77.
Rusty Wallace Racing drivers Steve Wallace and Michael Annett, as well as Kenny and Mike Wallace will honor Russ by displaying his name above their driver and passenger side doors.
Forty-eight teams are on the preliminary entry list for the O'Reilly Auto Parts Challenge.
<< PSV captain Toivonen signs extension
Eindhoven, Netherlands (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - PSV Eindhoven captain Ola Toivonen
signed a two-year contract extension with the club on Wednesday that keeps him
there until 2014.
Toivonen's initial contract was set to expire in June, but
<< This Week in Auto Racing November 4 - 6
Fort Worth, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The eighth race in the Chase for the Sprint
Cup championship highlights NASCAR's triple-header weekend at Texas Motor
Speedway.
NASCAR
Sprint Cup Series
AAA Texas 500 - Texas Motor Speedway - For
<< Federer, Roddick move on; Murray pulls out in Basel
Basel, Switzerland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Swiss icon and Basel native Roger
Federer was a second-round winner and Andy Roddick posted an opening-round
victory, while Andy Murray pulled out of the draw Wednesday at the $1.72
million
<< Newcastle's Ranger charged with assault
Newcastle, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Newcastle striker Nile Ranger has been
charged with assault after he allegedly attacked a man in the early hours of
Sunday morning outside a nightclub.
The incident is the latest in a string of arre
Texans' Johnson misses practice >>
Houston, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Houston Texans wide receiver Andre Johnson,
who missed his fourth consecutive game on Sunday against Jacksonville with a
hamstring injury, missed practice on Wednesday.
Johnson has been sidelined since s
Jaguars place WR Sims-Walker on IR >>
Jacksonville, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Jacksonville Jaguars placed wide
receiver Mike Sims-Walker on injured reserve on Wednesday with a knee injury.
Sims-Walker was signed by the Jaguars on October 19 after being released by
the
Falcons OT Baker out 3-4 weeks with back injury >>
Flowery Branch, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Atlanta Falcons offensive tackle Sam
Baker will miss three to four weeks with a back injury.
Baker, the 21st overall selection in the 2008 NFL Draft, has started 41-of-44
career games. He had surger
Ferrer, Monfils, del Potro roll in Valencia >>
Valencia, Spain (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Top-seeded and defending champion David
Ferrer of Spain and third-seeded Gael Monfils were easy second-round winners,
while former U.S. Open titlist Juan Martin del Potro cruised in his opening-
round m
Michael Vick is back, Brett Favre isn't and the NFC East remains the best division in the NFC, maybe in all of football.
As players start to gather for the start of another season, some things change and some stay the same in the world of the NFL.
The NFC East has been the dominant division in the National Conference for a while, despite limited playoff success, save for the New York Giants surprise Super Bowl win two seasons ago.
Hell, there's a generation of kids in Texas who have never seen the Cowboys win a playoff game (last win was in 1996).
But collectively, the Giants, Eagles, Cowboys and Redskins (well, maybe not so much the Redskins) are as good as a division gets in an NFC conference that has struggled to stay competitive with the AFC side.
Sports bettors have both acknowledged the NFC East's dominance, as one glance at the NFL future odds menu will show.
Looking over the NFL betting odds at online sports book MySportsbook.com we see the top three teams listed to win the NFC Championship are all from the NFC East:
Dallas Cowboys - 7 - 1
Philadelphia Eagles - 13 - 2
New York Giants - 9 - 2
Slotting in behind these three are two teams from the NFC North: the Minnesota Vikings (15-2) and the Chicago Bears (10-1).
Again, despite the lack of recent playoff success, the Dallas Cowboys are popular with the sports betting community, as they hold 14% of all the money wagered on who will win the NFC Championship.
So far, the New York Giants are the bettors' favorite to represent their conference in the Super Bowl, as they have 24% of the overall NFC Championship betting volume.
And what about the Philadelphia Eagles? For the most part, the Eagles had a very productive offseason, the kind that could bring them back to the top.
They had a good draft adding the likes of WR Jeremy Maclin and RB LeSean McCoy.
Unfortunately, the team received a blow when long-time defensive coordinator Jim Johnson passed away on Tuesday.
But this team will make a real run at the division title this year. Going into the regular season, Philly is listed at +240 to win the division.
Last season the Eagles were 9-6-1 SU and 10-6 ATS.
Teams from the NFC East will play teams from the AFC West in the regular season and the Eagles haven't really been a good bet in the last 20 games against the likes of San Diego, Oakland, K.C. and Denver, only going 8-12 ATS.
Two seasons removed from that Super Bowl title, the New York Giants see themselves listed as the odds-on favorite in NFC East championship futures at +162.
Plaxico Burress is gone and with him all the bad publicity surrounding the gun in the sweatpants incident, but can they replace him in the offense?
Last season the Giants were a very reliable bet going 12-4 ATS.
In the Giants' last 20 games against fellow teams from the NFC East; they are 13-7 ATS.
Dallas is listed at +240 to win the division.
Dallas went 9-7 SU and 7-9 ATS last season and with the amount of talent the Cowboys have, a similar performance won't do.
The Cowboys have been atrocious against divisional rivals, going 6-14 ATS in their last 20.
The Washington Redskins are longshots to win the division at +550.
Visit MySportsbook.com for free sportsbook odds RSS feeds go to MySportsbook.com for all your betting football needs.
Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"
A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.
In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.
"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."
Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.
But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"
Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.
This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.
Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.
In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.
No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.
And that's all any bettor can ask for.
To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.
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