Edwards, Keselowski feud showing no signs of letting up
Autoracing Betting Lines
07/19/2010 -
Madison, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - "Boom boom boom, now. Boom boom boom, now. Boom
boom pow."
I generally don't like using song lyrics to describe a frantic episode in a
NASCAR race or any other motorsports event, but after last Saturday's night's
final-lap clash between on-going rivals Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski in
the 250-mile Nationwide Series race at Gateway International Raceway, I
couldn't help but think of the Black Eyed Peas' 2009 hit single, "Boom Boom
Pow."
While they were beating each other up during the last lap around the 1.25-
mile oval, you just had to wonder if the latest battle between Edwards and
Keselowski would end up in a "checkers or wreckers."
Indeed, it did. Like it has in the past.
Keselowski bumped Edwards for the lead in turn one, but Edwards got payback
coming out of turn four, where he nudged Keselowski from behind and sent him
hard into the wall along the frontstretch, triggering a multi-car crash.
"He was holding me tight and getting me a little loose, which was cool,"
Keselowski said. "I was rubbing on him a little bit...I figured out a way to
beat him. He wasn't happy with me, so he wrecked me. Wrecking down the
straightaway is never cool, whether it's at 200 m.p.h. or 120. I'm sorry
that's the way it had to end."
As Edwards took the checkered flag for a record third time in a Nationwide
race at Gateway, which is located roughly 125 miles east of his hometown of
Columbia, MO, Keselowski's battered car slid across the finish line in 14th-
place before Shelby Howard plowed into him, causing him to spin around again.
Keselowski climbed out of his car a bit woozy, but was not injured.
"Brad and I have a history, but that history had nothing to do with what
happened [Saturday]," Edwards said. "I feel like we respect one another a lot.
On that last lap, I would have won the race if he hadn't bumped me in turn one.
He would have finished second. The way it went, he bumped me, and he
finished wherever he finished, and I still won the race.
"That was the only way I could see the race turning out fair, and that was my
job to win that race and to make sure I don't get walked on or get something
taken away from me that's mine."
Was Edwards' win legitimate? That likely will be a subject of debate for quite
some time.
Edwards claimed his incident with Keselowski was not intentional, but let's
face it, with the history between these two drivers, it looked like a
deliberate move on Edwards' part.
"I didn't mean any harm to him at all," Edwards said. "The deal is eventually
he'll learn you can't run into my car over and over and put me in bad
situations. In every situation, there is an aggressor, and there is someone
who reacts. I was not the aggressor in this situation."
The drivers have had previous on-track altercations, most notably in March when
Edwards intentionally bumped Keselowski from behind and sent him flying
upside down into the frontstretch wall during the closing laps of the Sprint
Cup Series race at Atlanta. Edwards was more than 150 laps behind at the time
of the crash, due to a previous encounter with Keselowski in that race.
NASCAR immediately parked Edwards for aggressive driving, and days later,
placed him on probation for three races.
The feud between the two began in April 2009 when Keselowski hit Edwards from
behind on the final lap at Talladega. While Keselowski drove on to his first
Sprint Cup victory, Edwards' car spun and then sailed into the safety fence
along the frontstretch.
The rivalry between Edwards and Keselowski hit a new boiling point at Gateway,
but how far will it go before someone gets seriously hurt, or worse, fatally
injured?
Prior to the start of the season, NASCAR told its drivers, "boys, have at it,"
but Edwards and Keselowski have been at it too long, and it's beginning to
upset some people in the sport, particularly Keselowski's father, Bob, who is
a former NASCAR driver and current team owner.
"[Edwards] ain't going to kill my boy," Bob Keselowski said during a post-race
interview on ESPN. " He just overreacted so bad. If he wanted to bump Brad,
that's one thing, but don't drive him through the inside guard rail. Don't put
him through the grandstands at Atlanta. That's asinine."
During an interview on SPEED's Wind Tunnel television show on Sunday, Sprint
Cup points leader and part-time Nationwide competitor Kevin Harvick told host
Dave Despain that he would have responded differently than Keselowski if he had
he been the one who was involved in the incident with Edwards.
"I probably wouldn't have reacted as kindly as Brad did; I probably would have
walked down there and punched him in the mouth," Harvick said.
Harvick, who won the Camping World Truck Series race at Gateway earlier
in the day, finished 16th in the Nationwide event. Harvick blew a right-front
tire and made contact with the wall in the late-stages.
With Keselowski currently holding a 168-point lead over Edwards in the
Nationwide standings, don't be surprised if we see some more "Boom Boom Pow"
between these two during the remainder of the season to come.
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March Madness odds and printable March Madness brackets
With the field of 64/65 set, MySportsbook.com has the Florida Gators as the 4-1 favorite to successfully defend their National Championship. Men’s Division-1 College Basketball has not seen a team repeat as National Champions since Duke won back to back championships in ’91 & ‘92. After losing three out of four late in the season, the Gators are full of momentum as they won their last four games by an average of 18 points. Not surprisingly, right behind the Gators are the other three top seeds: Kansas 5-1, UNC 6-1, and Ohio State 7-1. Many consider Kansas to be the hottest team in the country, having won 11 straight. With Kansas, it is hard to ignore all of the early exits from the “dance” in recent years. With an impressive ACC Tournament, UNC ensured themselves the other top seed. UNC has about as much talent as any other team in the tournament but with a team that’s best players are primarily freshman and sophomores, could youth be a concern. Behind freshman sensation, Greg Oden, OSU will look to do what their football team failed to do just a few months earlier. OSU seems to have peeked at the right time, as they currently have a 17 game winning streak. Since the tournament field was expanded in 1985, there has never been an instance where all four #1 seeds advanced to the Final Four. It is obvious that each of the top seeds have the talent to make it through to Atlanta. But as everyone knows, when makes the NCAA Tournament so special are all of the spoilers and “Cinderella” stories that knock off the favorites on a daily basis.
Be sure to logon to MySportsbook.com to see check out all of the early lines and “March Madness” props. Also be sure to enter the “$10,000,000 Perfect Bracket Contest”. If someone has the skills to predict every winner, they will be set for life and walk away with $10,000,000. Even if no one can cash in on the Grand Prize, with a $35,000 guaranteed prize pool and a Mazda RX-8 to the first prize winner, Sportsbook.com’s bracket is a must for all “March Madness” fans.
MySportsbook.com’s odds to win the Championship and Regions:
| EAST |
National Championship |
Region |
| Arkansas |
300-1 |
50-1 |
| Belmont |
|
1000-1 |
| Boston College |
100-1 |
40-1 |
| Eastern KY |
|
1000-1 |
| George Washington |
|
75-1 |
| Georgetown |
10-1 |
3-2 |
| Marquette |
100-1 |
40-1 |
| Michigan State |
100-1 |
25-1 |
| New Mexico St. |
500-1 |
200-1 |
| UNC |
6-1 |
6-5 |
| Oral Roberts |
|
500-1 |
| Texas |
15-1 |
5-1 |
| Texas Tech |
200-1 |
5-1 |
| USC |
75-1 |
20-1 |
| Vanderbilt |
100-1 |
30-1 |
| Washington State |
40-1 |
15-1 |
|
|
|
| WEST |
|
|
| Duke |
50-1 |
10-1 |
| Florida A&M |
|
1000-1 |
| Gonzaga |
200-1 |
40-1 |
| Holy Cross |
|
300-1 |
| Illinois |
300-1 |
60-1 |
| Indiana |
75-1 |
40-1 |
| Kansas |
5-1 |
13-10 |
| Kentucky |
100-1 |
40-1 |
| Niagara |
|
1000-1 |
| Pittsburgh |
40-1 |
8-1 |
| Southern Ill. |
50-1 |
12-1 |
| UCLA |
10-1 |
3-2 |
| VCU |
500-1 |
100-1 |
| Villanova |
100-1 |
40-1 |
| VA Tech |
50-1 |
15-1 |
| Weber St |
|
1000-1 |
| Wright St |
1000-1 |
300-1 |
|
|
|
| MIDWEST |
|
|
| Arizona |
50-1 |
30-1 |
| Butler |
40-1 |
30-1 |
| Davidson |
|
300-1 |
| Florida |
4-1 |
4-5 |
| Georgia Tech |
75-1 |
25-1 |
| Jackson State |
|
1000-1 |
| Maryland |
30-1 |
6-1 |
| Miami-OH |
|
300-1 |
| Notre Dame |
100-1 |
20-1 |
| ODU |
500-1 |
100-1 |
| Oregon |
40-1 |
6-1 |
| Purdue |
300-1 |
60-1 |
| Texas A&M CC |
|
1000-1 |
| UNLV |
100-1 |
30-1 |
| Winthrop |
500-1 |
100-1 |
| Wisconsin |
15-1 |
7-2 |
|
|
|
| SOUTH |
|
|
| Albany |
|
200-1 |
| BYU |
200-1 |
40-1 |
| Central CT St. |
|
1000-1 |
| Creighton |
100-1 |
35-1 |
| Long Beach St. |
500-1 |
200-1 |
| Louisville |
40-1 |
10-1 |
| Memphis |
30-1 |
4-1 |
| Nevada |
75-1 |
35-1 |
| North Texas |
|
500-1 |
| Ohio State |
7-1 |
6-5 |
| Penn |
|
500-1 |
| Stanford |
200-1 |
50-1 |
| Tennessee |
100-1 |
20-1 |
| Texas A&M |
12-1 |
11-5 |
| Virginia |
75-1 |
18-1 |
| Xavier |
100-1 |
40-1 |
Field 100-1
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Big 12 Conference betting odds
Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State
Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.
Work left to do:
Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.
Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.
Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.
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