NASCAR – Who’s got Spirit?
What upcoming races should be on your radar as we speed through the heart of the 2009 Spirit Cup betting series? Good question, let’s pick apart a few, and talk about which key racers are worth a look for the gamblers.
Right away, though, before we look at the individual races, you gotta have Mark Martin on your radar for some crucial odds. The guy has 4, second-place point finishes, and this could be the year he takes home the crown. You can bet he and his crew are going to be working overtime all the way to the end of the season in November to pull out his first victory. While you might think everyone is going to be trying their hardest, I like that extra motivation as a key reason why Martin is worth betting, if not in every race, as the top driver right now for the big picture. He’s 329 points behind Tony Stewart, but has 2 more wins throughout the season. Martin has already made more than $2M this season, and has eight Top 10 finishes.
On Saturday, July 4, the Coke Zero 400 will be conducted at 8 p.m. Eastern at the Daytona International Speedway. You can catch it on TNT. Since Martin is currently in eighth place, the odds are still against him, but with a higher return, and the proven talent of a veteran in the industry. Of course, Tony Stewart is your leader and favorite. It’s hard to count him out. However, he’s only won one race this year, so if I were putting my online sports betting money on Stewart these days on a race-by-race basis, I might look for a wager that took him to place in the top 3 or 5, and not to win.
Another big race coming up on July 26 is the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. You can catch that one on ESPN starting at 2 p.m. Eastern. At this point in the Spirit Cup season, we’re more than halfway through the races, and the leader board is shaping up, and the top contenders are jostling for position like any good race-car driver should. Besides Stewart and Martin, also in the thick of things are famous names Jeff Gordon (#2 spot, only 47 points behind Stewart – but again with only 1 win this year), and Jimmie Johnson (#3 spot, 142 points behind the leader with 2 wins and nine Top 10 finishes). You can bet with those names, as well as Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch, in the mix, we’re going to be in for a wild finish leading up to the Ford 400 in Miami on November 22.