Bowyer edges Truex Jr. for pole in first Chase race

Autoracing Betting Lines

09/15/2007 - Loudon, NH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Clint Bowyer won the pole for the opening round of the 10-race "Chase for the Nextel Cup" at the New Hampshire International Speedway. The No.07 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet driver will start out front for Sunday's Sylvania 300 after posting a best lap of 29.206 seconds (130.412 m.p.h.) around the 1.058-mile oval.

It was his second pole victory of the season and second of his Cup career. He also won the pole at Darlington in May. Both poles were in races where the COT was used.

"I wasn't a big fan of these things (Car of Tomorrow) starting out, but I'm becoming a fan," said Bowyer. "Our track record is pretty good with this car and it's going to be a big part of the Chase."

Starting alongside Bowyer will be Martin Truex Jr., who put up a time of 29.241 seconds.

"The car was really, really good in race trim, better than the car we had before," said Truex Jr., who finished third in the July race at NHIS.

Kurt Busch (29.296) and series points leader and defending series champion Jimmie Johnson (29.344) will start in row two. All four drivers in the first two rows are "Chase" drivers.

There are 12 drivers in the "Chase" and all 12 could realistically be champion.

Johnson, who finished the regular season in fourth place, will begin the 10- race "Chase" with the most points by virtue of his series-leading six victories. The defending series champion started the season strong, slumped a bit in the summer, but has returned to form with two consecutive wins at California and Richmond. He appears ready in every phase of the game.

"It's a great feeling to be able to go into the Chase leading the points," said Johnson. "That's something you obviously want to do, not only from the points standpoint, but from a psychological standpoint it's a benefit for sure."

Johnson's Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon, the four-time series champion, will start with the second-most points - 20 less than the No.48 Chevrolet team. Gordon, starting 18th, has led the series for 21 of 26 weeks and his 21 top-10s are by far the best in Nextel Cup.

Two-time series champion Tony Stewart will start with 30 points fewer than Johnson, but that shouldn't matter if Stewart continues to run as he has for most of the summer and into the fall. The No.20 Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet driver began the season with a 43rd-place finish in Daytona and didn't get his first win until July, but since that point he has been a force to be reckoned with. Since the race in Chicagoland, Stewart has earned three wins among seven top-10s in eight races. He will start sixth on the grid.

Carl Edwards (starting 11th) and Busch will begin the "Chase" 40 points behind Johnson, but both drivers have the ability and the teams behind them to win it all. Edwards and his No.99 Roush Fenway Racing Ford team have come on strong winning twice since mid-June. Busch was in danger of not making the "Chase" at all before the team came together in June. While others saw their chances melt away in the summer heat, Busch has not finished worse than 11th in a race in two months. Included in that streak are wins at Pocono and Michigan.

There are six drivers who will start 50 points behind the leader. Denny Hamlin (starting 14th), Truex Jr., 2003 Nextel Cup champion Matt Kenseth (30th), Kyle Busch (12th), Jeff Burton (23rd) and 2007 Daytona 500 winner Kevin Harvick (eighth). All six could win the title if things break their way. Hamlin, Stewart's teammate at JGR, has been the most consistent with one win, 10 top-fives and 15 top-10s.

Even Bowyer, the only driver in the "Chase" without a win, has the team, talent and speed to win it all. Bowyer will have two teammates in the "Chase" with him in Burton and Harvick which should help all three challenge for the championship.

The green flag is set to drop on Sunday at 2 p.m. (et).

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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