Kurt Busch captures Michigan pole

Autoracing Betting Lines

06/11/2010 - Brooklyn, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kurt Busch edged Jamie McMurray in Friday's qualifying to take the pole position for the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

Qualifying was delayed briefly due to a shower that moved over two-mile track earlier in the day. The inclement weather halted the last final 15 minutes of Sprint Cup Series practice and canceled the final practice for the Camping World Truck Series, which runs at Michigan on Saturday.

Busch, a two-time race winner at Michigan, turned a lap of 189.984 m.p.h. for his second pole of the season and the 12th of his Sprint Cup Series career. He won here in June 2003 and August 2007.

"The car felt comfortable in that one lap, and we were just looking at weather and looking at tomorrow and thinking we needed to stay in race trim more today, and after that one [qualifying] run, I thought, let's just tweak a few things,' and with the rain and qualifying getting back under way, I saw McMurray running in 37 [seconds], and I said, oh, the track is fast," Busch said.

Juan Pablo Montoya was quickest in today's lone practice, followed by Jimmie Johnson and Busch.

"We freed up the car just a little bit to make sure we weren't on the tight side, and that paid perfect dividends for us," Busch added.

McMurray will start on the front row at Michigan for the first time in 15 races here after qualifying 0.04 seconds behind Busch.

Johnson, the four-time defending series champion, will start third, followed by Kasey Kahne and Jeff Burton.

"It was a great lap there, but I'm not really sure how I could have gotten much faster there," Johnson said. "This [car] was awesome today. I'm very excited for this race. We've had the last two get away from us on fuel, and I hope this doesn't become a fuel-mileage race, because we can handle well and race for it."

Both races at Michigan in 2009 came down to a fuel-mileage battle, with Mark Martin winning the June race and Brian Vickers taking the August event. Jimmie Johnson held the lead in the closing laps but ran out of fuel in each of those two races at Michigan.

Jeff Gordon qualified sixth, while Denny Hamlin, last weekend's winner at Pocono, took the seventh spot. Ryan Newman, David Reutimann and Juan Pablo Montoya completed the top-10.

Points leader Kevin Harvick will start 31st. Harvick currently holds a 19- point advantage over Kyle Busch, who will roll off 15th.

Dave Blaney, Michael Waltrip and Johnny Sauter failed to qualify.

Sunday's 400-mile race at Michigan is scheduled to start just after 1:00 p.m. (et).

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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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