Busch dominant in third straight Nationwide win at Texas

Autoracing Betting Lines

04/04/2009 - Fort Worth, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kyle Busch put on a dominating performance in Saturday's O'Reilly 300 to win his third consecutive Nationwide Series race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Busch set a new track record after leading 178 of 200 laps. He also became the first driver to win from the pole in 17 Nationwide races at Texas.

Brad Keselowski chased down Busch with less than 15 laps to go, but John Wes Townley's accident setup a seven-lap shootout to the finish.

On the final restart, Keselowski spun his wheels and fell back to third, while Tony Stewart, who took on four new tires during the fourth and final caution, charged from seventh and took second position with three laps to go.

Busch finished 1.447 seconds ahead of Stewart for his second Nationwide victory of the season and the 23rd of his career. He has also won two Sprint Cup races and two Camping World Truck Series events so far this year.

"It was going to be a battle there between Keselowski and me if the caution had not come out," Busch said. "He was getting fast there at the end. It was cool that it was going to be a battle."

Busch's win comes two weeks after his bitter defeat at Bristol Motor Speedway. He led 156 of the first 254 laps at Bristol, but during his final pit stop, a tire bounced off the inside wall and rolled away from his pit stall. He was hit with a pass-through penalty and had to restart in 14th. Busch, who ended up finishing sixth, quickly left the track in disgust after the race.

Keselowski finished third after starting 42nd in a backup car. The JR Motorsports driver crashed during his qualifying run on Thursday.

David Ragan came in fourth, and Paul Menard was fifth.

Matt Kenseth, Mike Bliss, Jeff Burton, David Reutimann and rookie Justin Allgaier completed the top-10.

With the victory, Busch moved to within 38 points of leader Carl Edwards in the championship standings. Edwards was running among the top-five in the final laps, but Joey Logano made contact with the Roush Fenway Racing driver and put him into the wall. Logano finished 12th, while Edwards ended up two laps down in 18th.

Edwards will attempt to win his third straight Sprint Cup Series race at Texas on Sunday. He will start 13th in the Samsung 500.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished 20th after a pit-road mishap in the early stages. Earnhardt Jr. had a loose left-front wheel after his first stop, forcing him to pit again. He never recovered after falling deep in the field.

The 300-mile race ran relatively incident-free. Brendan Gaughan, the only driver to win four NASCAR races in a row at Texas in the Truck Series, got loose and spun onto the infield grass on Lap 160 for the third caution. The first two cautions were for debris.

The next Nationwide race is Saturday, April 11, at Nashville Superspeedway.

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Big 12 Conference betting odds

Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.

Work left to do:

Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.

Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.

Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.


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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