Light em up in Richmond

Autoracing Betting Lines

04/27/2010 - Richmond, VA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Series: NASCAR Sprint Cup. Date: Saturday, May 1. Race: Crown Royal presents the Heath Calhoun 400. Site: Richmond International Raceway. Track: 0.75-mile oval. Start time: 7:30 p.m. (et). Laps: 400. Miles: 300. 2009 winner: Kyle Busch. Television: FOX. Radio: Motor Racing Network (MRN)/SIRIUS NASCAR Radio.

After a wild and record-setting race at Talladega last Sunday, Sprint Cup Series teams switch gears and return to grassroots style of racing Saturday night at Richmond.

Don't expect another 88 lead changes among 29 drivers this weekend -- like we witnessed at Talladega -- but do anticipate Richmond to be another exciting affair, with plenty of beating and banging going on during the scheduled 400- lap race.

Richmond, 0.75 miles in distance, is one of three short tracks on the Sprint Cup schedule. Bristol and Martinsville are the other two. Richmond also is one of the most popular racetracks among the drivers and the fans.

"Richmond honestly is one of the best racetracks we go to from the perspective of what's the quality of the race," former Richmond winner and Virginia native Jeff Burton said. "The track is small enough to have good, close racing, and it's big enough to have racing that's not just a wreck-fest. I think it's the best mixture of size we go to all year long."

Kyle Busch won last year's spring race at Richmond on the same day he celebrated his 24th birthday. Just after a late-race restart, Busch made a daring four-wide pass on the outside to take the second spot from Carl Edwards and then moved around Jeff Gordon to grab the lead for good with 49 laps remaining. He became the second driver to win a Cup race on his birthday. Cale Yarborough won the spring event at Atlanta the same day he turned 43 years old on March 27, 1983.

Busch also won the Nationwide Series race at Richmond for a weekend sweep there.

"For me, the success that I've had there, I'm not sure why, but it's just been a good place for me to run," Busch said. "I'm excited about getting back there, and hopefully we can get another top-five run or try to go after another win."

Despite a fifth-place finish last September at Richmond -- the cutoff race for the championship chase -- Busch missed the playoffs by just eight points in 2009.

Busch, who turns 25-years-old on Sunday, has not won a Cup race since last August at Bristol.

Kevin Harvick has been another strong performer at Richmond lately, posting nine top-10 finishes in the last 10 races there. He finished 34th at Richmond one year ago, after being involved in late-race wreck.

"It's been a good track for us over the past couple of years," Harvick said. "It's the racetrack that kind of goes with everything that we do from my driving style, to the cars and to everything that goes with it."

Harvick snapped a 115-race winless streak in the series at Talladega. He made a perfectly timed maneuver on Jamie McMurray for the lead just before they approached the finish line. Harvick nipped McMurray by 0.011 seconds for his first win since the 2007 Daytona 500. He also moved to within 26 points of leader Jimmie Johnson, who finished 31st.

Speaking of Johnson, will Richmond be the next chapter in the on-going rivalry between Gordon and he?

Six days after they tangled at Texas, Gordon and Johnson bumped into each other before Gordon was caught up in a five-car pileup in the final laps at Talladega. Gordon, who finished 22nd, made it clear he was rather p.o.'d with his Hendrick Motorsports teammate.

Forty-six teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Crown Royal Presents The Heath Calhoun 400.

Heath Calhoun was chosen as the grand-prize winner in a contest held by Richmond race title sponsor Crown Royal. Calhoun, a retired member of the Army and Purple Heart recipient, is a former member of the 101st Airborne unit and a veteran of the Iraq war. He was severely injured when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his Humvee in 2003, resulting in the amputation of both his legs above the knee.

Calhoun also was honored with the George C. Lang Award for Courage.

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Football Betting

NFL Football Betting Online

The San Francisco 49ers (5-11 SU, 5-10-1 ATS in 2007; 1-1 SU & ATS in pre-season) found some offensive life last week, and they will try to build some momentum on Thursday night as they travel to the Windy City to take on the Chicago Bears (7-9 SU & ATS in 2007; 0-2 SU, 0-1-1 ATS in pre-season) in an NFL matchup that is set to get underway at 8 PM ET at Soldier Field (natural turf) in Chicago.

Thursday, August 21

NFL betting odds: CHICAGO -3 (-120), Total 37

NOTABLE STAT: San Francisco was last in points, last in total offense in 2007
KEY NFL BETTING TREND: SF has lost its last seven SU on pre-season road

In the BetUS NFL pre-season football betting odds, the Bears are listed as a three-point favorite (laying -120), with the total posted at 37 points.

Here are some NFL football betting trends as they relate to this matchup (reflecting numbers going into the 2008 season):

* SF has lost 11 of its last 14 games SU
* SF has covered three of its last 11 games
* SF has lost six of its last seven road games SU
* SF has covered one of its last seven road games
* CHI has covered five of its last eight games
* CHI has played five of its last seven games OVER the total
* CHI has covered four of its last 13 home games
* SF has lost its last seven pre-season road games SU
* CHI has covered two of its last seven home pre-season games

Well, I guess we should congratulate the Bears on making their quarterback choice for the season's opening game, as they have designated Kyle Orton the starter against Indianapolis. The Bears obviously have lost patience with Rex Grossman, and what they do with him at this point is anybody's guess. But suffice it to say that there isn't a quarterback competition anymore, at least in training camp.

Meanwhile, the quarterback competition may also be settled in San Francisco, where the Niners bounced back from a lackluster 18-6 loss to the Raiders, in which they turned the ball over four times, to execute a 34-6 rout of the Packers last Saturday. However, coach Mike Nolan has stopped short of saying that, insisting that the job is still open. But J.T. O'Sullivan, the longshot of the trio of Niner signal-callers who opened camp, will start his third straight pre-season game here. Against Green Bay, O'Sullivan was only 8-for-17, and was intercepted, but he also threw for 9.1 yards an attempt, which included a 59-yard TD pass to Josh Morgan. The others struggled.

Some offensive cohesion is badly needed, in light of the Niners' dismal 2007 campaign, in which they were dead last in the NFL in scoring, with just 13.7 points a game. And O'Sullivan is the guy who is most familiar with offensive coordinator Mike Martz's exacting system, because he learned it last year in Detroit. O'Sullivan will go at least the entire first half and may even last longer. He'll be relieved by Alex Smith, with Shawn Hill doing the mop-up work. Three receivers who were out last week - Bryant Johnson, Ashley Lelie and Arnaz Battle - will miss this game too.

That may hurt a little here, especially since the Bears will be using a lot of their defensive starters. And it's the defense that has been keeping the Bears in games thus far. In fact, the defense and special teams were responsible for the first 19 points Chicago scored against Seattle last time out, as the offense really struggled with Grossman at the controls. But maybe the first-team offense has a chance to settle a little bit as it works more with Orton at the helm.

Certainly we have concerns about the Bears' offensive line, but we like the scenario for them here, especially if O'Sullivan doesn't make some bis plays. The Niners may have nowhere else to turn right now, and they have lost seven straight road games in the pre-season. Let's take Chicago, the three-point favorite in the NFL football betting odds.

CHICAGO -3 (-120) **
(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)

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