Keselowski claims pole for new Nationwide car debut at Daytona

Autoracing Betting Lines

07/02/2010 - Daytona Beach, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Brad Keselowski will start on the pole for Friday night's Subway Jalapeno 250, in what will mark the first race for the new Nationwide Series car at Daytona International Speedway.

Keselowski, the current points leader, turned a lap of 183.031 m.p.h. around the 2.5-mile superspeedway in his sporty looking Dodge Challenger for his fourth pole of the season and the seventh of his Nationwide career. He also won the pole for last week's race at New Hampshire.

"It's just a great car," Keselowski said. "Even the backup car was good enough to be on the front row. It's just an awesome team, and it's really coming together great. It was a solid run, and I cant' think of any better place to start than the front row."

Keselowski's teammate, Park Kligerman, qualified second after posting a lap of 182.242 m.p.h.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start third in his one-time deal of driving the No.3 Wrangler Chevrolet, which was made famous by his father, Dale Earnhardt.

"Yeah, I'm really happy with that," Earnhardt Jr. said of his qualifying run. "I want to thank Wrangler and everybody for putting this deal together. To be in this race car, I'm really proud to be driving it and just happy for this team."

Series regular Justin Allgaier qualified fourth, while Kyle Busch, who leads the series with six race wins so far this season, took the fifth spot.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Greg Sacks, Ryan Newman, Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano completed the top-10.

Sacks, who is driving the No.88 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports, is celebrating the 25th anniversary of his first and only Cup victory, which came in the July race at Daytona.

With regards to the new Nationwide car, Ford will showcase its popular Mustang, while Chevrolet will bring a new model of its Impala, and Toyota will keep its standard version of the Camry.

Carl Long was the only driver who failed to qualify.

The 250-mile race at Daytona is scheduled to start around 8:00 p.m.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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