2011年10月22日星期六
I'm also impressed by the fact that after practicing 17th
MB2 isn't a competitive team, and it seems unlikely that they'll win races next year. I'm also impressed by the fact that after practicing 17th, qualifying 16th, and practicing againNIKE FREE TILBUD, 15th (that's consistency for you), he went out in Happy Hour and posted the fastest lap of anyone in the race. on the race's last lap to win his first Nextel Cup race. Martin jerked us around on his "Salute To You" Tour (in which he and Rusty Wallace accepted tons of retirement gifts at every track they visited), and then jerked us around this year, claiming his was done Chaussures Timberland Femmewith stock cars. Indeed, Lowe's has been berry, berry good to J.J.: outside a wreck-induced 39th-place here his rookie year, he's got a career finishing average at Charlotte of 2.56, including five wins. Oh, yeah, except the part where MB2 decides to pay him upwards of $10 million for next season.I admit: it's hard to say 'no' to that kind of dough (though what Martin needs with more money, I'm not exactly sure). He hasn't won a race this year, but has seven top-fives and 14 top-10s, and just as important, is the only driver in the Chase for the Championship without a DNF (he's also the only driver in the Chase without a win). But overall, it was a good week: we netted a positive 3.67 units on 1.5 units wagered; for the year, that brings us to a net positive 20.94 units, wagering those 1.5 units per week. I had Vickers in a straight-up wager at 30-1. But oy, enough with the hand-wringing, Hamlet.Anyway, here comes Charlotte: the first of the three 1.5-mile, high-banked tracks coming up in the next four races. He's never won at this track, it's true. Kahne is the current stud on this track type. In fact, he really hasn't been very competitive here of late, finishing 42nd and 33rd in Charlotte in '05, and 11th in the Coke here in May. (15-1), 1/6th unit. That's saying something. You've heard of the Young Guns? Welcome to the Geezer Brigade.Okay, yeah, sure, Martin doesn't want to drive the Nextel Cup circuit full-time anymore, and so he gets to keep his toe in the water while making a ton of scratch, and a loser team with a new owner gets some credibility. Jimmie Johnson has owned this place, winning four straight until this spring, when Kasey Kahne broke his string. Plus, he's not a threat in the Chase for the Championship, so there's no reason for him not to go balls-out.Take Jimmie Johnson (5-1), 1/6th unit. He complains about his car all day long over the radio, then Chaussures Timberland Enfantsgets out of the car and tells reporters, with tears in his eyes, that he loves his team, he loves the car they gave him, he loves everyone. What in the wild world of sports is up with Mark Martin?Here he is. That's just nuts. These kinds of streaks end, of course, but even in falling to Kahne back at the Coke 600 this summer, Johnson finished second. You have to believe he's going to be near the front at race's end.Take Dale Earnhardt Jr. Fine. But oh the kvetching. Let's take a look at the best bets for this Saturday-night event.Last Week: When you're hot, you're hot. He won at Atlanta, Texas and Charlotte in the 2006 season's first half, lending credence to the theory that the #9 team has something figured out in a big way at these joints. These guys are the co-favorites, it's true, and with good reason: Kahne has his impressive triumvirate of cookie-cutter-track victories, and Johnson has the name of this speedway stenciled on his hood. Thanks.Take Kasey Kahne (5-1), 1/6th unit. Woo. Junior took a severely damaged car at Atlanta (on a Monday, because of a rainout) this spring, and finished third with it. In the middle of the Chase for the Championship (he currently sits third, only 10 points out of first). We've also won money in 20 of 29 weeks.Note: Please check back Saturday morning for our head-to-head selection of the week, which we'll make when the online books post their odds. It looked for all the world that I was going to come up empty at Talladega last weekend, but Brian Vickers came through for me, wrecking Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. And while the Michigan and California two-milers are not great equivalents to the three tracks with which we're concerning ourselves this week, they are downforce tracks, and Junior managed a fifth-place finish in four races on those two venues in '06. Hoo. But the high-banked 1.5-milers, which have long been the bane of DEI, have suddenly become a specialty. Enough. He also ran to a 12th at Texas. He's been quite good on the high-banked unrestricted 1.5-mile speedways this year (a fifth-place finishing average, second-best on the Smokeless Set), on which three of the final six races will take place. Charlotte, Atlanta and Texas are all basically identical, and they regularly swap the honor of being the fastest track in NASCAR. And if it's not Kahne, it's going to be Johnson. In the middle of his second retirement tour. They will be fielding three cars: Marlin and Regan Smith in the #01, Nemechek moving over to the #13, and Sterling Marlin in the #14. Giving interviews left and right that he has no desire to run Nextel Cup cars anymore, and that he'll be satisfied with a part-time ride in the Craftsman Truck series. Now, I also had Johnson over Junior, and that sucks, because when their respective cars came to rest, Junior's was like four feet ahead of J.J.'s, so I lost that one. I give him a decent chance, and at these odds, that's okay by me.Christopher Harris is a featured writer for the Professional Handicappers League. Rolling into Talladega and telling the world that he's parting company with Roush Racing, and will instead run 22 races in the MB2 Motorsports #01 car, currently piloted by Joe Nemechek.Ruh? Raggy?Martin is, as they say, a whopping flake. Read all of his articles at http://www.procappers.com.
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