NASCAR Back to Short Track This Saturday

NASCAR now moves from a 2.5-mile superspeedway to a short track, although nascar racing betting fansshould know that some of the dynamics of the Aaron’s 499 will still be in place. What we mean is that at Richmond International Raceway, the cars will still be racing in a virtual pack, except it will be around a much shorter course.

NASCAR Betting Odds
To Win Sprint Cup Title
(Top 12)

• Jimmie Johnson +200
• Carl Edwards +800
• Jeff Gordon +900
• Kyle Busch +900
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. +1000
• Mark Martin +1000
• Denny Hamlin +1200
• Kurt Busch +1200
• Greg Biffle +1500
• Kevin Harvick +1500
• Matt Kenseth +1500
• Tony Stewart +1800

Richmond likes to call itself "America’s Premier Short Track" and it plays host to both the NASCAR Nationwide Series and the Sprint Cup. It has also hosted the Indy Car Series. On Saturday they will run the Heath Calhoun 400, and then on September 11 it is another race; in fact, the last one on the Sprint Cup "regular season:" schedule, which is aptly titled "One Last Race to Make the Chase." The track also hosts two events in the Nationwide Series – the Bubba Burger 250 and the Virginia 529 College Savings 250.

Every one of Richmond’s events is held under the lights, which means that Fox will televise this week’s race at 7:30 PM ET on Saturday rather than its customary Sunday slot.

RIR is located on 1000 acres just outside of Richmond, and has played host to a number of events, including steeplechase horse races in the past, as well as the Virginia State Fair. It seats over 97,000 people and its asphalt track is just three-quarters of a mile around, in a D-shape. The turns are lightly graded, with 14-degree banks, and it is known to be pretty fast for a short track.

Last year it was Russ Friedman 400, presented by Crown Royal, and Kyle Busch (+900 odds to be Sprint Cup champion) crossed the finish line first. Denny Hamlin (+1200 in the Sprint Cup odds) won the fall event. in fact, this is one of Hamlin’s favorite tracks; he has started among the top seven in seven out of the last eight races here, and has finished among the top three on four occasions. Short tracks in general are very favorable to Hamlin, who has two wins this season, one of them at Martinsville. In 27 career starts on short tracks, he has finished in the top five 14 times.

Richard Petty won a total of 13 races at this track. The record for Sprint Cup qualifying is held by Brian Vickers (100/1 to win the Sprint Cup), who went 129.983 miles an hour in 2004. Dale Jarrett had the fastest race, going 109.047 mph in the 1997 fall event. Sam Hornish, who will be in Saturday’s Sprint Cup race (and is 100/1 to win the championship), holds the overall speed record at Richmond, qualifying at 176.244 mph for an IndyCar race in 2005. Helio Castroneves, another IndyCar driver, turned the fastest lap, at 15.564 seconds, in 2006.

Oh by the way, why was last year’s race called the "Russ Friedman 400," you ask? Well, it’s because the race sponsor, Crown Royal, holds a contest where the winner gets the race named after him or her. It actually starts with the name "Crown Royal presents the ‘Your Name Here’ 400." This year they actually did things a little different, where fans were asked to nominate members of the military who had performed a "selfless act." Calhoun, a Bristol, Tennessee native who suffered injuries in Iraq that necessitated the amputation of both legs, later became an alpine skier and participated for the U.S. in the Winter Paralympics in Vancouver.

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