The chase for Yarborough

By Jeff Haney

Friday, Oct. 24, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The Sports Book

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Jeff Haney gives his Breeders' Cup pick and his college and NFL picks of the week.

The NASCAR Chase for the Championship has not been officially decided, but the betting odds strongly favor Jimmie Johnson in his quest to win a third consecutive Sprint Cup title.

Johnson, coming off a victory at Martinsville Speedway, is a heavy 2-5 favorite to win the championship, according to odds at all Station Casinos properties in the Las Vegas area.

That means bettors must risk $2.50 for each $1 they’re trying to win on Johnson, a sizable premium but one that makes perfect sense considering Johnson leads the chase by 149 points with four races remaining in the championship series.

The odds on Johnson are down from an opening preseason price of 4-1 at Stations.

If Johnson, who’s a 7-1 choice to win Sunday’s Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, can hold on, he would tie Cale Yarborough’s record of three consecutive titles. Yarborough won in 1976, ’77 and ’78.

Greg Biffle, the runner-up in the standings who has two victories in this year’s chase, is listed at odds of 7-2 to win the title, along with Jeff Burton.

Carl Edwards, a strong contender until he was derailed by a 29th-place finish at Talladega and a 33rd-place finish at Charlotte in consecutive races, is the fourth choice at odds of 5-1.

In a teleconference with reporters to promote Sunday’s race at Atlanta, Yarborough seemed resigned to Johnson’s equaling his feat.

“It’s an awful difficult thing to do,” Yarborough, 68, said. “I think it may have been harder to win them back then than it is today because you had to compete against everybody back then.

“As far as it lasting 30 years, I just wonder how come it took so long for somebody to win three in a row.

“That was a long streak. Thirty years is a long time, but I was happy to hold it ...

“If he does it, I’ll be in good company. I hope he feels the same way.”

Underdog study

An insightful report on betting NFL home underdogs appears in the latest issue of the weekly “Logical Approach” newsletter by Las Vegas author and handicapper Andy Iskoe.

The detailed study examines the performance of home underdogs against the point spread in the past 26 NFL seasons, a span encompassing more than 1,900 games involving home ’dogs.

It concludes that blindly betting home underdogs during that stretch would have been unprofitable, resulting in a loss of nearly 13 units for a bettor risking the standard 11-to-10 with a bookmaker.

This comes as “quite a surprise” to many, according to Iskoe, because betting on home underdogs is sometimes touted — irresponsibly, in a lot of cases — as some sort of magic formula for winning.

(Details on the newsletter, other services and betting information are available online at www.thelogicalapproach.com.)

Perhaps home ’dogs came to acquire a mystique because they’re a lesser evil than other groups such as home favorites, road favorites or road underdogs.

In other words, focusing on home underdogs might be a decent starting point for a football bettor, but it’s a strategy that carries little value in the absence of solid handicapping.

Like last season, NFL favorites and underdogs are performing about the same against the point spread this year as the season’s halfway point nears, according to Iskoe.

Carry-over lives!

The prize pool in the free NFL contest at Lucky’s sports books stands at $48,000 for this week’s games after a seven-week carry-over.

The contest, free to enter and limited to one entry per person, entails picking the winner of all of Sunday’s NFL games plus the Monday night game. The prize pool started at $6,000. Another $6,000 is added to the pot each week if no one hits a perfect card. The contest’s format is unique in Nevada.

Again, no entrant correctly selected the winner of each NFL game this past week. The best score was 12-1, achieved by 19 entrants.

Picks can be submitted any time before 9 a.m. Sunday at any Lucky’s sports book including those at the Plaza and Terrible’s in Las Vegas.