Franchitti, Power battle for the title at Las Vegas

Autoracing Betting Lines

10/12/2011 - Las Vegas, NV (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Series: IZOD IndyCar. Date: Sunday, October 16. Race: Las Vegas Indy 300. Site: Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Track: 1.5-mile oval. Start time: 3:45 p.m. (et). Laps: 200. Miles: 300. Television: ABC. Radio: IMS Radio Network/SIRIUS XM Satellite.

Eighteen points, two drivers and one race to go.

That's the point separation between leader Dario Franchitti and second-place Will Power heading into this weekend's IZOD IndyCar Series season-finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This will be the first time the series has competed at this 1.5-mile track since 2000.

Franchitti is attempting to win his third consecutive and fourth overall IndyCar championship. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver would become just the third person to win three titles in a row on the racing circuit, joining Sebastian Bourdais and Ted Horn. Franchitti would also join drivers such as A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Rick Mears and Bourdais with at least four championships.

"I think with the three we've won right now, I've always felt we had the capability to do it, but having the capability to do it and actually getting it done are two different things," Franchitti said. "I'm very proud of the achievement -- the championships and the Indianapolis 500s [wins]. As far as right now, I'm really just focused on this weekend and trying to make it four.

"The whole organization, the Target team, is very much of a similar thing. All the stuff that was done in the past, that's fun and everything, but this is about trying to get the job done this weekend."

Last year, Power held a comfortable 59-point lead over Franchitti with four races to go. The last four were contested on 1.5-mile ovals. Power finished 16th (Chicago), eighth (Kentucky), third (Japan) and 25th (Homestead) in those races and lost the championship by five points.

"I think the biggest difference for me this year is just I'm a lot further along on ovals," Power said. "I feel as though every time I go into a weekend I have a chance of winning them. Obviously, we're coming from behind this time, but at the end of the day, I feel as though we've done everything as a team to prepare for this race. I think that we're in very good shape.

"Obviously, no one knows what the outcome is, but we know that we've put everything into it this year, and hopefully we can come away with a win."

Power held an 11-point lead over Franchitti heading into last week's penultimate race of the season at Kentucky. Power started on the pole and led the first 48 laps, but during the first round of pit stops, the Team Penske driver made contact with Ana Beatriz while entering his stall, causing damage to his car. He had to pit several times for repairs and ended up finishing 19th. Franchitti finished a very close second to Ed Carpenter, who claimed his first IndyCar win by a margin of just 0.0098 seconds.

There will be more than the series championship at stake in Sunday's 300-mile race at Las Vegas.

Reigning Indianapolis 500 champion Dan Wheldon has an opportunity to share a $5 million bonus with a lucky fan if he wins at Las Vegas. Wheldon, who has competed in just two races this season, is the only driver eligible for the "GoDaddy IndyCar Challenge" cash award. He will drive the No.77 car for Sam Schmidt Motorsports. He was also behind the wheel of that car at Kentucky, starting 28th and finishing 14th in the 29-car field.

Wheldon has a tough task ahead of him at Las Vegas. He will have to start from the rear of the expected 34-car field.

"When you look at the depth of the field, it's going to be incredibly tough," Wheldon said. "I think we all know what this team is capable of and what everybody that's been part of the team has helped do for tracks like Vegas. I feel we'll have a very fast race car."

Nine of Wheldon's 16 career IndyCar wins have come on 1.5-mile ovals.

Las Vegas will also mark the end of Danica Patrick's seven-year career in IndyCar. Patrick, the only female to win a race in the series (Japan, 2008), is moving over to NASCAR full-time in 2012, running a full schedule in Nationwide and a partial one in Sprint Cup.

"There will definitely be things and people that I miss about IndyCar," Patrick said. "I'm especially sure on frustrating weekends [in Sprint Cup and Nationwide competition], I'll think, 'When I came here in IndyCar, maybe it was much easier.' I'm excited about the change, and I'm not afraid of change."

Patrick is currently 10th in the point standings, with her season-best finish of fifth coming at Milwaukee.

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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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