Edwards in command of Chase heading into Martinsville

Autoracing Betting Lines

10/26/2011 - Martinsville, VA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Series: NASCAR Sprint Cup. Date: Sunday, October 30. Race: Tums Fast Relief 500. Site: Martinsville Speedway. Track: 0.526-mile oval. Start time: 1:30 p.m. (et). Laps: 500. Miles: 263. 2010 Winner: Denny Hamlin. Television: ESPN. Radio: Motor Racing Network (MRN) /SIRIUS NASCAR Satellite.

With four races to go, Carl Edwards is in pretty good shape to win his first Sprint Cup Series championship. Edwards survived last Sunday's Chase "wild card" race at Talladega with an 11th-place finish. His lead is now 14 points over Roush Fenway Racing teammate Matt Kenseth, making it the largest points separation so far between 1-2 in this year's Chase.

But Edwards has another big hurdle facing him this weekend -- Martinsville Speedway. Martinsville is the only short-track race on the Chase schedule. It's also one of Edwards' toughest tracks.

Edwards has scored just four top-10 finishes in 14 starts at Martinsville. His best performance here is third place, which came in October 2008. Edwards has led only three laps at this 0.526-mile track -- all of them coming in April when he finished 18th.

"I am a little nervous about Martinsville," he said. "I think if we can pick up just a tiny bit of speed there we will be good. Otherwise, that will be one of the tracks we go to and just fight and claw for a top-10, and that is how it usually is for me there."

Martinsville has not been one Kenseth's better tracks as well. He has just two top-five finishes and seven top-10s in 23 races here. Kenseth did finish sixth at Martinsville earlier this season.

"Probably the most challenging part for me at Martinsville is being calm, thinking through things and not doing something because you are mad," he said. "I don't like getting run into, and I don't like running into other people, and it's bound to happen there since it's such a small track. There is no room to move, and there is not an outside groove where you have another choice to pass."

After finishing 34th at Charlotte and then 26th at Talladega, Jimmie Johnson's hopes of winning a sixth straight series championship are slipping away big time. Johnson is now a distant 50 points behind Edwards. He's not on the brink of elimination just yet, but a disastrous finish at Martinsville could put him out of the game.

"We've just got to keep fighting and keep working on getting every point we can at every race," Johnson said. "We have no clue what's going to happen to all the Chase drivers, and I want to finish as high as I possibly can in the Chase. That does mean the championship. If it's not there, I want to finish as high as I possibly can."

Johnson has notched six wins and 17 top-10 finishes in 19 races at Martinsville. After finishing 35th in his first start here in April 2002, Johnson had a string of 17 straight top-10 runs at this track before placing 11th in this year's spring event.

"Quirky tracks have always worked for me, and this track certainly is that," he said.

If Johnson does not win on Sunday at Martinsville, it will be the first year since 2005 that he has not won a short-track race during a season.

Heading into Martinsville, Brad Keselowski is 18 points behind Edwards, while Tony Stewart trails Keselowski by a single point.

Keselowski continues to be very impressive in his first Chase year. He was the highest finishing championship contender at Talladega with a fourth-place run.

Stewart kept his title hopes very much alive with a seventh-place finish at Talladega.

"I don't think there's anybody that's mathematically out of it with four races to go here right now," Stewart said. "With the old [points] format of the season-long-standings with four races to go, you only had a handful of guys that still mathematically had a shot to win the championship. And you were really racing two to three guys at the most at this point, where there's nobody that's really eliminated from the opportunities to win this championship with four races to go. All 12 guys are still in it."

Kevin Harvick took a big hit in the Chase after finishing 32nd at Talladega. Harvick trailed Edwards by just five points before Talladega. He is now 26 points out of the lead.

Harvick won a Sprint Cup race at Martinsville for the first time in April. He denied Dale Earnhardt Jr. an opportunity to snap his lengthy winless streak when he passed Earnhardt Jr. for the lead with four laps to go. Harvick finished third in last year's fall race here.

"Over the first several years, we didn't get a lot of the finishes [at Martinsville] that we probably deserved, whether it was from a mistake on the racetrack or just dumb luck," Harvick said. "The last couple of years, we've gotten good finishes, and our cars have run fast. To finally get that check mark in the win box was important for us."

Earnhardt Jr.'s winless drought in NASCAR's premier series now stands at 125 races.

Forty-seven teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Tums Fast Relief 500.

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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.