NASCAR – Spoiler Alert at Texas Motor Speedway

As we move into the Samsung Mobile 500 this weekend, it constitutes another spoiler alert, and this one is even more severe than this first week the drivers were forced to eschew the back wing and take on the rear spoiler. The drivers were on short tracks in Bristol and Martinsville, then a one-mile oval in Phoenix, but here they are traveling on the 1.5-mile course at TMS, and this is a legitimate super-speedway, where the cars will be flying – well, we hope not literally – and it offer every indication as to how the accessory is going to react at such high speeds.

NASCAR Sprint Cup
Samsung Mobile 500
Sunday, April 18 – 3 PM ET
Texas Motor Speedway, Fort Worth

Top Ten – Odds to Win

Jimmie Johnson +350
Jeff Gordon +800
Kurt Busch +800
Mark Martin +800
Tony Stewart +1000
Denny Hamlin +1000
Matt Kenseth +1000
Greg Biffle +1200
Juan Pablo Montoya +1200
Carl Edwards +1200

The big factor that makes this exercise different than the one the drivers had when they were literally testing it at Charlotte several weeks ago is that this time they will be in traffic, and there is no telling how a car is going to react to being nudged, bumped, turned or flipped with such different aerodynamics.

I mean, I don’t want to say I don’t know, or no one knows that answer. NASCAR has some competent safety and research & development people, and so do the teams. They’re just anxious to see something under real racing conditions.

I don’t know that you are going to see some real problems, and I don’t know that you are going to see any kind of power shift in the racing results, although a lot of people who are looking for a glimmer of hope against Jimmie Johnson are quick to point out that Johnson’s four straight titles have basically been accomplished in the "era" of the rear wing.

Johnson, who is the +350 betting favorite to win Sunday, has a win at TMS, but so do a lot of other drivers. The guy who would appear to have the hottest hand at Fort Worth is Carl Edwards, who has taken the checkered flag in three of the last nine races at TMS, included two of the last four. Edwards, who is +1200 in the betting to win the Samsung Mobile 500, hasn’t discriminated between spring and fall either; he took home titles in both seasons in 2008.

Edwards also holds the record for the top speed, clocking in at over 151 miles an hour for his first victory in a Cup race at TMS in November of 2005. The slowest time, for a winner, belongs to Jeff Burton (+1500 odds to win Sunday), who tallied just 125.111 mph back in 1997. The biggest margin of victory in a Cup race at TMS was the last race there, now known as the AA Texas 500, as Kurt Busch (+800 to win Sunday) was 25.686 seconds ahead of the rest!

That said, don’t count out Edwards, who looks like he might be a betting value at 12/1.

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