Article by Brian Gabrielle
Adequate whining, let’s get to Atlanta.
The Smokeless Set complained just before last weekend’s Vegas race, and they complained following. The track was too slick, the tires were too hard, it was too hazardous to race side-by-side. Boo. Hoo.
Sufficient. Now we’re at Atlanta, a time-honored track that’s also harmful as hell because of its speeds, but which every person likes since it really is got tradition. It really is not that races do not get any much less strung-out here, or that the speeds aren’t just as death-defying, or vehicles won’t get mind-numbingly loose to the point where they’ll wreck themselves. It is just that everybody will smile and say what a fun location Atlanta is to race.
And remember, Atlanta is a clear parallel to Charlotte and Texas, so we can appear at historical information from all three when we make our selections. Let’s get to it!
Last Week: I picked the race winner, but due to the fact of the way we’re currently allocating units, it was nonetheless a losing week. Because Kevin Harvick was poor and Dale Earnhardt Jr. was fairly very good, we lost our head-to-head bet (on which we presently location six times as a lot of units as our straight-up bets), so the truth that we had Jimmie Johnson, the winner, for 1/6th of a unit at just +650 wasn’t enough to overcome the H2H loss. Alas, that indicates -.25 units for Week three of the Nextel Cup season, though we’re still at a positive 1.23 units (or a 27.3% return) for the year. (Note that if you’d like to alter your betting style and merely gamble one unit on each pick, in an admittedly little sample size so far this year we’re up 14.62 units.)
Take Jimmie Johnson (+475), 1/6th unit. Johnson is the prohibitive preferred once again on Sunday, since he’s racing quite nicely appropriate now, and since he’s remarkable on the Atlanta-Charlotte-Texas triumvirate. Whilst Charlotte is his actual greatest track, Atlanta Motor Speedway ain’t negative: in his last seven AMS events, J.J. has come 2nd, 6th, 16th, 2nd, 1st, 4th and 3rd. He almost certainly did not have the absolute best automobile at Vegas last weekend, but that is a measure of a team’s excellence: put the correct tires on at the right time, make the correct adjustments, and eke ahead of the competition when it counts. These are very low odds, obviously think of it as a hedge against the race’s most most likely outcome.
Take Jeff Gordon (+750), 1/6th unit. As opposed to Johnson, I believe Gordon truly was the fastest car at Vegas last week. He led the most laps, and he was perhaps 10 laps from holding on for his very first win of ’07. That milestone could very nicely come this week. Gordon was very very good in practice Friday, and he qualified fifth (Johnson qualified third). The #24 team currently sits second in points, and as soon as Mark Martin (+1650) sits out the next two races, Gordon will likely have the lead. He’s won at Atlanta on 4 occasions, most lately in the fall of 2003, and he’s got 3 straight finishes in the leading six here. Most importantly, if you take the last two races together, Gordon has pretty clearly had the ideal downforce program in the young 2007 season.
Take Dale Earnhardt Jr. (+1550), 1/6th unit. We’re finding Junior at greater odds since he practiced (19th) and qualified (22nd) poorly on Friday, and this track’s history dictates that the race winner normally comes from inside the top ten beginning positions (that is been the case in seven of the last eight Atlanta events exactly where qualifying hasn’t been rained out). Still, Small-E has a history of coming from mediocre beginning positions and producing excellent finishes at this track. In this race last spring, Junior started 26th and finished third with his car completely banged-up from numerous wrecks in the fall ’05 Atlanta occasion, he came fourth after starting 17th and in the spring of ’03, he began 37th and completed third. Hey, it is not an optimal arrangement you’re not generally going to get odds like this on Junior at this venue. But I believe it really is a likelihood worth taking.
Brian Gabrielle is a documented member of the Specialist Handicappers League. Read all of his articles at www.procappers.com/Brian_Gabrielle.htm
