Harvick crushes field to win Gateway truck race

Autoracing Betting Lines

07/17/2010 - Madison, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Neither a stiff neck nor scorching heat could stop Kevin Harvick from winning Saturday's 200-mile Camping World Truck Series race with a dominating performance at Gateway International Raceway.

The CampingWorld.com 200 at Gateway was scheduled for Friday night, but a lengthy power outage around the 1.25-mile track forced postponement until the following day.

Harvick, who was complaining of a stiff neck before the start of the race, started on the pole and led 143 of 160 laps. He held a sizeable lead before the fifth and final caution came with 36 laps remaining. When the race resumed, Harvick quickly pulled away from the field and then easily beat his fellow Sprint Cup series competitor Brad Keselowski by 5.2 seconds for his third victory of the season and the ninth of his truck career.

"Physically, I feel okay," Harvick said. "I'm just so nervous about moving somewhere I shouldn't and catching my neck. It felt a lot better the hotter it got in [the truck], so that was a good thing."

Harvick and Keselowski are among several drivers who ran in the truck race and are scheduled to compete in tonight's 250-mile Nationwide Series event here.

Temperatures during the truck race soared to around 95 degrees, with the heat index well over 100 degrees.

"I feel good, but I'm just a little hot and sweaty," second-place finisher Keselowski said. "I'll go back to the bus, take a nice shower and get ready for the Nationwide race tonight. I think we have even a better car over there than we had a truck over here. This truck was pretty good."

Johnny Sauter finished third, while Todd Bodine, the series points leader, took the fourth spot. Matt Crafton completed the top-five.

Timothy Peters, rookie Austin Dillon, who won last week at Iowa, Aric Almirola, Brian Ickler and Mike Skinner, last year's race winner at Gateway, finished sixth through 10th, respectively.

Bodine padded his lead to 101 points over Almirola.

Ron Hornaday Jr. finished a disappointing 26th. Hornaday was running in the second spot in the early going, but suffered a mechanical problem and eventually fell 10 laps down. The four-time defending series champion has yet to win a race this season after posting six victories, including a record five races in a row, during his 2009 title season.

On lap 80, Ricky Carmichael and Jeffrey Earnhardt were involved in a hard crash. Mike Skinner bumped Carmichael and turned him around into the wall. As his truck then slid down the track, Earnhardt could not avoid the incident, as slammed into the rear of Carmichael's truck. Both drivers were not injured during the incident.

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Betting the NFL preseason

Rule No. 1 in the gamblers' handbook states, "Avoid sports betting on meaningless games."

When you're drowning in a sea of baseball monotony, however, things change. Even a hint of pro football betting can persuade the most disciplined bettor to break a few rules. 

The NFL preseason is around the corner, with a tempting Hall of Fame match kicking off on Sunday. But bettors must stay vigilant. Wagering on NFL exhibition games is an entirely different beast than the regular season. Most fans don't recognize the players on the field because starters get as much action in August as Warcraft fans get on Prom night.

The only certainty about the NFL this time of year is uncertainty – and yet there are some who say betting in August can be a gold mine.

“I actually feel the NFL preseason presents solid profit opportunities for sharp bettors and handicappers,” Sports Expert Steve Merril explains. “My experience has been that the sportsbooks fear the preseason, which is evident by lower limits and massive moves.”

The line moves are attributed to the limited knowledge available regarding playing-time distribution. One team’s top unit out on the field for one more series has an impact on the pointspread. Setting lines in the preseason often is a shot in the dark.

“We base the betting lines mostly on public perception,” Pete Korner, founder of the Sports Club in Las Vegas, says. “It’s very tough to predict, almost a guessing game.”

The preseason is all about figuring out who’s in and for how long.

“It becomes a race between bettors and oddsmakers to find out how long the quarterbacks are going to stay in,” Korner admits. “If a sharp gets the information first, he could exploit an early line. I’m a full believer in moving the line in the preseason if the books find out something late in the week.”

Determining what each team’s motive is can help bettors handicap. To do this you must pay close attention to the philosophies head coaches employ in exhibition play.

“You need to know what a coach is trying to accomplish,” says Covers Expert Bryan Leonard. “Sometimes a new coach will want to instill a winning attitude. Others just want to make sure their starters don’t get hurt."

So how do you distinguish who’s playing scared and who’s playing for keeps?

“Head coaches on the hot seat or new coaches trying to implement a winning attitude usually try harder to win in the preseason,” Merril says.

Cleveland Browns head coach Romeo Crennel fits this criteria. He’s entering his third season as the sideline boss and has yet to lead the Browns to more than six wins.

Cleveland is an enticing bet as well because of the unresolved quarterback situation. General manager Phil Savage sacrificed the Browns’ first-round pick in next year’s draft for Brady Quinn, but the former Notre Dame quarterback hasn’t signed or reported to training camp yet.

Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson split time at QB last season and it looks like either player (or even Quinn) could be the opening-day starter.

“If a team has quarterback depth and the pecking order hasn’t been decided, it’s a big advantage,” Leonard says.

Even in the third week of the preseason when starters generally play the most, the final outcome of the game is in the hands of fringe players. A team's talent, all the way down to the last man on the roster, is something to consider.

The New England Patriots have long been considered one of the deeper teams in the NFL and coach Bill Belichick has said in the past he’s unafraid of stars getting hurt in games with nothing on the line. He shocked his colleagues in 2003 by playing some of his starters on special teams in the preseason.

“We want to have the team ready to play a tough, physical game and preparation has to go into that and I imagine a certain amount of injuries go with it,” Belichick told the Providence Journal in August 2003.

Bettors can only hope to find more teams that share the Pats' business-like approach to the preseason (New England is 17-9-3 against the spread since 2000) and take advantage of teams who detest the exhibition schedule.

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your bet on football needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.