2010 NASCAR Southern 500 Picks & Predictions
This week, NASCAR heads back to its roots when it pays a visit to Darlington Raceway for the Showtime Southern 500 on Saturday night.
Darlington was NASCAR's first superspeedway track, but that is all it has in common with other tracks of its ilk. With its unique egg-shaped layout, Darlington is one of stock car racing's most challenging tracks and is known as, "The Track Too Tough To Tame" or "The Lady In Black," thanks to the black stripe that usually winds up on all the cars by the end of the race.
This week’s betting strategy will be similar to last week’s, with normal bets on our top two plays, and smaller bets on two drivers who we think have a chance of beating our top two choices.
Jeff Gordon 6/1
Jeff Gordon has had a love/hate relationship with Darlington over the years, but ever since they switched to the COT car he has once again become a force by finishing no worse than third in his last six races. With his seven wins, Gordon leads all active drivers and has finished inside of the top 10 an astonishing 14 times in his last 19 races, with an average finish of 11.3. This very well could be the week Gordon gets the monkey off his back and comes away with a win.
Denny Hamlin 8/1
Hamlin has shown a real fondness for Darlington, with two wins in the Nationwide series. But he has yet to win in a cup car at Darlington. In four starts here, Hamlin has three top 10s and an average finish of 8.0, which is third best among active drivers. So far this year, all the cars from Joe Gibbs Racing have been running great and always seem to be in contention. Not even recent knee surgery has slowed down Hamlin.
Live Longshots
Mark Martin 15/1
After last season’s great start, Mark Martin has gotten off to a very slow start and Darlington could be just the race to jump start this team. Though this isn't one of his best tracks, it is a track that Martin has always run well at and has shown he knows how to avoid the dreaded “black stripe.”
Jeff Burton 12/1
Burton has always done well here, which shows in his average finish of 10.5 with two victories. Like last week, we look for another strong run from him but as always, he has shown a penchant for coming up just short.
Another week and another bad beat for Gordon. 😛