Biffle wins Pep Boys Auto 500 pole

Autoracing Betting Lines

10/26/2007 - Hampton, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Greg Biffle edged Kurt Busch for the pole in Sunday's Pep Boys Auto 500 qualifying at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, the seventh race of the 10-race "Chase for the Nextel Cup." The No.16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford driver circled the fast 1.54-mile circuit in 28.807 seconds (192.453 m.p.h.).

The pole victory was Biffle's first of the season and fourth of his "Cup" career. His last pole was in May 2006 at Richmond.

"These guys are giving me great race cars," said Biffle. "I probably left a little bit out there because I wanted to make sure my car was on the bottom. the track had a lot of grip."

Starting alongside Biffle will be the only "Chase" driver in the top-five - Busch, who posted a second-best time of 28.811 seconds.

Dale Jarrett (28.927) and Kasey Kahne (28.936) will make up row two.

The remainder of the "Chase" field will start in the following order: Jimmie Johnson (sixth), Jeff Gordon (eighth), Carl Edwards (16th), Matt Kenseth (17th), Denny Hamlin (18th), Kyle Busch (19th), Martin Truex Jr. (20th), Clint Bowyer (26th), Jeff Burton (28th), Tony Stewart (30th) and Kevin Harvick (34th).

"The car had good balance, we just didn't pick up any speed (from practice)," said Johnson.

Gordon brings a 53-point lead over Johnson and 115-point lead over Bowyer to the AMS.

In the six "Chase" events to date, Gordon has won twice (Talladega, Lowe's) and collected five top-fives. His worst finish in the "Chase" was a still respectable 11th place at Dover.

Johnson is coming off a win last week at Martinsville. It was his third consecutive win at the half-mile short track that used to be Gordon's bailiwick. Johnson has three top-fives in the "Chase," but two 14th-place finishes, at Dover and Lowe's, have left him with a sizeable deficit to overcome.

Johnson was the winner at AMS in March where he led 135 of 325 laps en route to a 1.311-second victory.

The only wild card that could possibly ruin the Hendrick Motorsports Championship march is if Bowyer and his No.07 Richard Childress Racing can come up with a "miracle."

Following a ninth-place finish at Martinsville, his best ever on the flat half mile track, he sits 115 points behind Gordon.

"We were just hoping that we could be within a hundred points of (Gordon and Johnson) coming out of Charlotte and here, because we know they 'own' these two places," said Gil Martin, Bowyer's crew chief after Martinsville.

"I'm really enjoying our situation where we're at - it's fun," said Bowyer. "I'm really proud of the way we've been able to step up our program. It's neat to see how far we've come in just a few races."

The race is scheduled to drop the green flag on Sunday at 2 p.m. (et).

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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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