Daytona 500 Odds

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Daytona 500 Odds
December 20, 2009

The Las Vegas Hilton SuperBook became the first sportsbook to open odds for the 2010 Daytona 500 and Sprint Cup Championship.

Over the last four seasons, there has been little drama in the Chase for the Championship that has seen Jimmie Johnson win an unprecedented four straight titles. Despite the streak, the Las Vegas Hilton hasn?t over-adjusted on what seems to be as sure of a sure thing there is in NASCAR by opening Johnson as the 5/2 favorite, a price that has been on par with Johnson at the beginning of each of his last three seasons.

For whatever reason, the public -- knowing that Johnson is going to be tough to beat, would rather bet a little amount to win big which takes Johnson completely out of many betting equations, that is until Johnson wins and you lose. But that?s where the fun of wagering this early in the season comes into play.

People want to root for an underdog. Some folks bet a new driver to win the title every year when they visit Vegas giving them action and someone new to root for throughout the season.

The real value, or at least appearance of the value, lies within the drivers who be looking to stop Johnsons? reign. Mark Martin (7/1), Kyle Busch (8/1), and Jeff Gordon (8/1) round out the top four favorites to win the Championship.

Should you want to go deeper with a long-shot possibility, Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin, and Carl Edwards are 10/1 and Juan Pablo Montoya is 12/1.

The interesting drivers to keep an eye on in the Championship Chase in 2010 will be the Childress drivers led by Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton, who are both listed at 30/1. Even though neither made the Chase last season, they both came on strong during the Chase races closing out the season on a positive note for what had been an exhausting year for both.


Dale Earnhardt Jr.?s third season with Rick Hendrick has him starting the season with his highest odds ever to win a Championship at 30/1. Junior always fell into the supply and demand category in Las Vegas betting which always made his odds lower. The bookmakers used to set their odds lower just because the majority of the public would bet Junior weighing out the scales of risk on him for a race or Championship.

This time around, the Junior Nation has seen enough and doesn?t believe in him anymore. Last season he barely got a blip of attention from NASCAR bettors who saw that things weren?t right in the No. 88 camp.

But it may be a little early to jump off the bandwagon. Junior will be coming into a full season with Hendrick Motorsports cars made and set up the Hendrick way. The last two seasons Tony Eury, Jr. had tinkered with his own set-up on the Hendrick cars counteracting the edge that had seen teammates Johnson, Gordon, and Martin excel with.

According to the odds, the Daytona 500 should be wide open. Only one driver, Kyle Busch at 8/1, is listed at odds lower than 12/1. After Busch, there are seven drivers listed at 12/1.

Busch has been the most consistently dominant restrictor-plate driver over the last two seasons, but we?ve seen a transformation in plate racing that has brought so many more teams to an equal level. Who can forget the decade long Chevy reign that saw DEI or Hendrick win just about every plate race where it was almost a forgone conclusion that Ford or Dodge had no chance.

Now it?s quite the opposite. Last season, we saw Jack Roush win his first Daytona 500 with Matt Kenseth and then go to Talladega and win with Jamie McMurray in the fall. In the first Talladega race, a rookie, Brad Keselowski, won the race with a team that was a part-time operation.

2010 should be no different and beginning with Daytona your guess is as good as anyone to who will win kicking off the season. Pretty cool that you can almost smell the high octane fuel, burnt tires, and asphalt before Christmas.

Odds to Win 2010 Daytona 500 (courtesy of Las Vegas Hilton SuperBook)

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Kyle Busch 8/1
Jimmie Johnson 12/1
Mark Martin 12/1
Jeff Gordon 12/1
Denny Hamlin 12/1
Dale Earnhardt Jr 12/1
Tony Stewart 12/1
Kurt Busch 12/1
Juan Pablo Montoya 15/1
Carl Edwards 15/1
Kevin Harvick 20/1
Matt Kenseth 25/1
Clint Bowyer 25/1
Ryan Newman 25/1
Jamie McMurray 25/1
David Ragan 25/1
Kasey Kahne 30/1
Jeff Burton 30/1
Brian Vickers 30/1
Joey Logano 30/1
Martin Truex Jr 30/1
David Reutimann 30/1
Greg Biffle 40/1
Brad Keselowski 40/1
Marcos Ambrose 50/1
Sam Hornish Jr 50/1
AJ Allmenindinger 50/1
Michael Waltrip 50/1
Casey Mears 60/1
Elliott Sadler 60/1
Bobby Labonte 60/1
Paul Menard 60/1
Scott Speed 100/1
Field (All Others ) 25/1

 

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Pastrana ready to barge into New Year

Pastrana ready to barge into New Year

Pastrana ready to barge into New Year
December 18, 2009


Action sports wild man Travis Pastrana is ready for takeoff.





It's landing in one piece - and not splashing down - that's going to be the tricky part.

Pastrana wrapped up practice this week for his stunt on New Year's Eve, when he'll attempt to set a world record for the longest jump in a rally car, from the Pine Street Pier in Long Beach, Calif., onto a barge anchored in the harbor.

The current record is 171 feet set by Pastrana's Subaru teammate, Ken Block, in a rally car in November 2006. Pastrana wants to break that mark by more than 100 feet. To do so, he'll have to clear at least 230 feet of water between the pier and barge.

``There's still a lot to learn, but you don't want to take all the fun out of the jump,'' Pastrana said in a phone interview. ``So we'll be learning a little bit on jump day.

``I really think we can put on a great show either way. I'm really hoping to make it look easy, but I think there's a lot of people hoping I don't,'' he added with a laugh. ``Either way, it's kind of a win-win. I hate to look at it like that. I'm really hoping for the perfect landing. We'll see.''

Pastrana said he made several test jumps at a site east of Temecula in Riverside County, including four at approximately the distance he'll be attempting to jump. While he had some hard landings and one end-over-end wipeout, Pastrana is confident he can complete the jump without ending up in the water.

Pastrana, remember, is the guy who announced himself to the action sports world when at age 15 he celebrated an X Games gold medal by jumping his motorcycle into San Francisco Bay in 1999. That stunt got him into a fair bit of trouble, and he lost his prize money and medal.

He'd prefer to stay out of the water this time.

The distance changed a little bit from jump to jump in practice, but Pastrana anticipates the front of the barge will be about 230 feet from the pier. ``So obviously under 230 I hit the water, over 300 and I land flat and probably and break my back,'' he said. ``So somewhere in that range will probably be OK.''

The hardest part of practice was dealing with headwinds, which reduce the distance the car will fly, and crosswinds, which make aiming for the landing ramp difficult.

He said a 5 mph headwind makes the car go 40 feet less over 200 feet.

``That's significant,'' he said. ``Hopefully it's not windy. But if it is windy, it'll be a Hail Mary. Unless it's a hurricane or something, I'm going to try to fly the car.''

He started with two cars and is down to one after wiping out on one jump.

``As it turns out, it's very difficult to jump a car,'' said Pastrana, who's usually flying through the air on a motorcycle. ``If it goes well, it goes really well. If it goes bad, it goes really bad.''

The good news, he said, was even after the wipeout and some hard landings, he was still on line to land on the barge and not in the water.

Pastrana said he's gone through a safety course, and will have scuba gear in his car.

``As long as I'm not knocked out I think I'll be all right,'' he said.

Pastrana realizes a lot of people think he's crazy. But everything has been well-calculated, from the construction of the ramps to mathematicians figuring out angles and weight.

``It's not perfect, but it gets you close,'' he said. ``Then it's just fine-tuning, to figure out how a car really does fly.''

He found that the rear spoiler he uses in rally racing caused the back of the car to drop in the air, so that had to be changed.

``I actually found that I can hit the brakes in the air and bring the front end down or keep on the gas and bring the front end up. I can really control the car through the air, which is nice,'' he said.

The jump will be the latest in Red Bull's New Year, No Limits series.

Just as Australian freestyle motocross star Robbie Maddison pulled off death-defying jumps in Las Vegas on the last two New Year's Eves, Pastrana said he's confident he can do this.

``I get asked, 'Do you really want to go this far? The world record is 171 feet. Why do you want to go 250? ' I want to push it. I want to be the best that I can. I don't want to just do something a little better. If we can do it a lot better, let's do it. Let's push the limits.''