Third class set to be inducted into NASCAR Hall of Fame

Autoracing Betting Lines

01/19/2012 - Charlotte, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Five new members will be enshrined into the NASCAR Hall of Fame on Friday. Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Richie Evans, Dale Inman and Glen Wood make up the 2012 class. They were voted into the NASCAR HofF last June.

The inaugural class -- Bill France Sr., Richard Petty, Bill France Jr., Dale Earnhardt and Junior Johnson -- were inducted when the NASCAR HofF opened in May 2010. Bobby Allison, Ned Jarrett, Bud Moore, David Pearson and Lee Petty made up the Hall's second class last year.

Friday's induction ceremony will take place at the Charlotte Convention Center [7:30 p.m. (et)].

Yarborough became the first driver to win three consecutive championships in NASCAR's premier series (now known as the Sprint Cup Series). His string of titles from 1976-78 was unmatched until 2008 when Jimmie Johnson claimed his third series championship in a row. Johnson won his fourth and fifth straight titles in 2009-10.

In a career that began in 1957 and concluded after the 1988 season, Yarborough notched 83 Cup wins, which currently ranks him sixth on the all-time race winners list. Four of his victories came in the Daytona 500.

Yarborough finished runner-up in the series championship in 1973 and '74 and again in 1980. After the '80 season, Yarborough, whose father was killed in a plane crash when he was 11, felt he needed to spend more time with his children and never again pursued a full-time driving schedule.

"I gave up a lot, but I gained a lot more," he noted in his 1986 autobiography "Cale."

Yarborough drove for Junior Johnson from 1974-80, but after Yarborough left Johnson's team, Waltrip took over his seat. Waltrip, nicknamed "Jaws" for his outspoken demeanor during his career, went on to win three Cup championships with Johnson.

"Cale gave me the best advice that anybody could give me, and that was that he was going to leave Junior's [team], and nobody even knew of it," Waltrip recalled. "He said, 'I'm telling you something that nobody knows, and Junior likes you, and he wants you to drive his car. You need to go talk to him.' That was the best advice that anybody ever gave me, because it led to a lot of wins and three championships."

Waltrip won his titles in 1981, '82 and '85. From 1977-87, he finished no worse than fifth in the point standings. Waltrip claimed his first Daytona 500 victory in 1989, driving for Rick Hendrick.

Since retiring at the end of the 2000 season, Waltrip has served as an analyst for FOX Sports and Speed television's coverage of NASCAR.

Evans is the first of the 15 inductees without a connection to NASCAR's top racing circuit. Nicknamed the "Rapid Roman" by virtue of racing out of Rome, NY, Evans niche in stock car racing came in the modifieds. He won nine NASCAR national modified championships over a 13-year span, including eight straight titles from 1978-85. He worked on his own cars -- as many as 100 hours per week -- and almost raced every night of the week.

"Working with the car and working on it in the garage every week is an advantage," Evans once said. "While I'm working on the car, I'm thinking about every lap I rode in that thing. It's not like the mechanic who stood and watched it during the feature and then has to make some decisions."

Evans was killed in an accident while practicing for a modified race at Martinsville Speedway in October 1985. Last week, the New York State Senate adopted a resolution honoring Evans' NASCAR HofF induction.

Inman will become the first crew chief inducted into the Hall. He served as a crew chief at Petty Enterprises for nearly three decades, setting records for most championships (eight) and wins (193). Inman guided his cousin, Richard Petty, to seven titles. He won a championship with Terry Labonte when Labonte drove for car owner Billy Hagan in 1984.

Unlike his cousin, Inman never had a desire to drive race cars.

"I just didn't see me tearing up somebody else's equipment," he said. "I was always pretty well content to work on the race cars and make them better."

Wood and his brothers, Leonard, Delano, Clay and Ray Lee, went from weekend racers to one of the most accomplished teams in NASCAR, with some of the sport's greatest names driving for them. Pearson and Yarborough, as well as Buddy Baker, Neil Bonnett, A.J. Foyt, Tiny Lund and Marvin Panch drove for the Wood Brothers.

"I didn't come here alone; I had a lot of help," Wood said. "There's five of us brothers, and all of those have helped at one time or another. Leonard had been there all along for the whole 60-something years. Of course, we've had so many good drivers too. All of that led to where we are."

The Wood Brothers have won 98 Cup races, including five Daytona 500s, from 1950 to present. In just his second start with the team, Trevor Bayne won the 2011 Daytona 500 one day after turning 20 years old.

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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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