Johnson on the brink of third-straight title with Phoenix win

Autoracing Betting Lines

11/09/2008 - Avondale, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Jimmie Johnson took a huge step closer towards capturing his record-tying third-consecutive Sprint Cup Series championship with a dominating victory in Sunday's Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. Johnson led 217 of 313 laps and held off Kurt Busch in a green-white-checkered finish.

The victory was Johnson's seventh of the season and the 40th of his Sprint Cup career. He also became the first driver to win three races in a row at Phoenix.

Johnson now holds a 141-point lead over Carl Edwards, who finished fourth. If Johnson finishes 36th or better, regardless of Edwards' performance, in next weekend's season-finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, he will clinch the title.

"I can't tell you how tough the last week has been," Johnson said. "It's just emotional regardless of where you're at if you have a big points lead or not. This is what I've worked my whole life for."

Johnson finished 15th last Sunday at Texas, his first finish outside the top-10 in this year's "Chase for the Sprint Cup." Edwards, who won at Texas, trimmed Johnson's lead to 106 points.

Now Edwards is hoping for a miracle in Homestead if he has any chance at winning the championship.

"Jimmie is just doing it, and he did a great job," Edwards said. "I think what we have to do is keep our heads up and go to Homestead. It's still possible, but not probable. I guarantee you we're just gonna go there and give it a 100% and hope something happens."

Johnson started on the pole, but Jamie McMurray passed Johnson to take the lead on the opening lap.

Sam Hornish, Jr. got loose and made contact with Elliott Sadler, causing the two to spin and hit the wall on Lap 19. Busch was the quickest off of pit road during the caution, while McMurray fell to seventh after a lengthy stop.

Johnson restarted fifth on Lap 24, but quickly moved to up to second just before the second caution came on Lap 30 when Brian Vickers cut a right rear tire and hit the wall hard.

When the race resumed on Lap 37, Johnson attempted to take the top spot from Busch, but the caution flag quickly came back out, this time for rain falling on the backstretch.

As the rain intensified by Lap 43, NASCAR stopped the race for 24 minutes.

Johnson chased down Busch and completed the pass as he took the lead for the first time on Lap 81.

Denny Hamlin and David Gilliland pitted on Lap 99 to begin a round of green- flag stops. Johnson came in two laps later and handed the lead back over to Busch, but Johnson was in front again on Lap 110.

At the half-way point, all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers were in the top- six, with Johnson, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Jeff Gordon running 1-2-3, and Casey Mears sixth.

But Gordon quickly fell back in the field as he struggled with power in his engine. By Lap 195, Johnson had put Gordon a lap down.

Gordon's engine expired on Lap 269 as he headed to the garage and called it a day.

"I felt it early on and started to lose some power," Gordon said. "I didn't pay too much attention to it, because I was still getting plenty of rpm, and the car was still running good. Then all of the sudden, it started really going down, and I felt it lose a cylinder."

Gordon is on the verge of his first winless season since his rookie year in 1993. His last victory came in October 2007 at Charlotte.

McMurray recaptured the lead on Lap 212 when he beat Johnson off of pit road during a caution. Johnson was held up during his stop.

However, Johnson quickly caught McMurray and dove underneath him to take back the top spot just after the restart on Lap 219. He led from there on out.

The sixth caution for debris on Lap 261 set up the final round of pit stops. Johnson remained the leader after he was the quickest out of the pits, while Edwards moved up to fourth, gaining three positions.

A major pileup occurred on Lap 273 when Juan Pablo Montoya bumped Casey Mears, causing Mears to spin as he collected several cars behind him. David Gilliland's car rested on top of Scott Speed's machine.

"I went through a cloud of smoke and the next thing was I started hitting something and I saw a little bit of fire," Speed said.

Scott Riggs, Bobby Labonte, Kyle Petty and Johnny Sauter were also involved in the incident. NASCAR halted the race again, this time for 18 minutes to clean up the track.

Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth made contact and spun on Lap 305. The 10th and final caution set up a green-white-checkered finish.

Busch attempted to steal the victory from Johnson during the final two lap but came up two car lengths short of accomplishing it.

"We were pretty good today but not that good," Busch said. "What Jimmie's team is building on and what they're doing to win three championships in a row is something pretty special."

McMurray finished third, while Hamlin came in fifth.

Earnhardt, Jr., Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Jeff Burton and David Ragan completed the top-10.

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Horse Betting

(This is an update of a sportsbook for the May 4th issue of ESPN The Magazine).

The Kentucky Derby's post-position draw happened on Wednesday. And, as is always the case, shortly afterwards, a buzz raced around Churchill Downs. It was a low rumble at first, nothing that the squares in the mint julep crowd pick up right away. But by the time the sun set over the twin spires, the chatter was impossible to ignore. Everyone -- sharps, trainers, owners -- was talking about one thing: the wise guy horse, the pre-draw long shot us mopes didn't have on our radar until it was too late.

"You think you're hearing the scoop," says handicapper Lane Gold. "Then you get to the window, the odds are short, and you missed it."

Recognizing a wise-guy horse early is as hard as picking a Derby bonnet. That's because handicappers don't like hype (see ya, I Want Revenge). They want Thoroughbreds who look good losing prep races like the Santa Anita Derby. They eye horses who ate up the field after starting wide or made an easy transition from synthetic tracks to dirt. They look for ponies who showed muscle gain race to race and those who ran hard after several weeks' rest.

"A wise guy," says John Avello, a bookmaker at Wynn Las Vegas, "looks for a horse who can improve."

When I first wrote Horse Betting for The Mag, which I turned in a three weeks before Wednesday's draw, I predicted these three horses had wise guy potential:

CHOCOLATE CANDY (15-1 in mid-April, currently 20-1 according to Avello): His second-place finish at Santa Anita, following a seven-week layoff, proved two things: He can run after resting, and -- by losing a high-profile prep race -- he wouldn't be overhyped.

DESERT PARTY (15-1; 15-1): He was upset in the UAE Derby by a horse he had beaten twice. The public remembers his loss, but the wise guys his wins.

PIONEEROF THE NILE (8-1; 4-1): The big favorite at Santa Anita struggled to win, so he initially got less hype than Quality Road and I Want Revenge.

You may have noticed that the odds on Pioneerof the Nile have been cut in half, from 8-1 to 4-1. Which means the wise guys took a shine to him long before the post-position draw. But, to be honest, this is one of those years with four elite horses getting everyone's attention, squares and sharps alike.

"You're not gonna get a lot of chatter about a horse that isn't in that group, which includes Pioneer, I Want Revenge, Dunkirk and Friesan Fire," Avello told me Wednesday. "We don't have a group of horses behind those top four who look like real legit contenders."

Come Derby week, the final two elements in picking a wise guy horse are how he's working out and what gate he's coming out of.

(By the way, picking a Preakness favorite is a whole different bale of hay, partially based on how horses finish in the Derby. You can see my analysis of who has the best shot at Pimlico on Insider Sunday morning.)

Well, early in the week I Want Revenge, Pioneerof the Nile and Friesan Fire were working out better than anyone. Some thought Friesan Fire, currently 6-1, might have run too fast, burning a five-furlong run in :57 4/5. "When you are running that fast you have the sense that it took something out of him," says Gold. "The Derby is longer than any horse has run, and if they need that extra surge you worry they won't have it because they burned it in the workout."

But, Gold points out, Friesan Fire's trainer is Larry Jones, Two years ago his horse Hard Spun did a five-eighths workout in :57 3/5 and then went on to finish second, behind Street Sense, in the Derby. "Every trainer has different methods," says Gold. "And clearly he knows what he's doing."

Now, as for starting position, Gold says to remember this: Churchill Downs traditionally has 14 starting gates. For the Derby, it brings out auxiliary gates and between the original 14th gate and the new 15th gate, there is a little more space than there is between gates 1-14. "That 15 position will give you a precious second or two to sort out what's happening to your inside," says Gold. "Sixteen is also okay because you can follow the horse in front of you."

Dunkirk, one of the race favorites, is coming out of gate 15. In 16 is Baffert's Pioneerof the Nile. I Want Revenge drew 13, where Smarty Jones won from in 2004, and Friesan Fire picked the sixth position. "He doesn't have a lot of speed to the inside of him," says Gold. "So he will get a clear shot to be near the front."

All the jibber-jabber means this: Pioneerof the Nile has leapfrogged from 8-1 to being the second favorite, along with Dunkirk, behind I Want Revenge. Meanwhile, Friesan Fire, with a good trainer, a strong week of training and a decent post position, is still at 6-1. "By Saturday, it's possible he could go from fourth to the favorite," says Gold.

In other words, meet Friesan Fire, your 2009 wise guy horse.

"Now," says Avello, "it's time for action."

To visit this horse betting site go to MySportsbook.com for all your horse racing betting needs.

FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

NFL Betting Lines

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