Wallace, KHI prevail in Talladega truck race

Autoracing Betting Lines

10/22/2011 - Talladega, AL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Mike Wallace claimed his first win in the Camping World Truck Series in 11 years by taking Saturday's Coca-Cola 250 at Talladega Superspeedway.

Wallace, a Nationwide Series regular, got a lot of pushing help from his Kevin Harvick Inc. teammate, Ron Hornaday Jr., to lead 54 of the 94 laps. Both drivers were hooked up in a two-truck tandem for most of the race at the 2.66- mile superspeedway.

The 52-year-old Wallace substituted for Elliott Sadler in KHI's No.33 Chevrolet. Sadler was scheduled to drive the truck, but his wife, Amanda, is expecting their second child, which prompted the substitution earlier this week.

"Ron Hornaday is an incredible and unselfish individual, because he could have gone for the win," said Wallace, who crossed the finish line 0.06 seconds ahead of Hornaday. "We were sideways at one point."

Wallace and his wife, Carla, had planned on celebrating their wedding anniversary this weekend, before he received a phone call from team co-owner Kevin Harvick.

"I have to thank Kevin and DeLana Harvick and everybody at KHI," Wallace noted. "It's been so long since I've won a race, and nobody knows how much this means to me."

Wallace had not won a race in any one of NASCAR's three national series since July 2004 at Daytona. His most recent truck win came in 2000 at Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield, CA.

He is now a five-time race winner in the truck series.

Since taking over driving duties in KHI's No.2 truck, Hornaday has won at Kentucky and Las Vegas and finished second at Talladega.

"It's been fun driving this No.2 truck; this is what it's all about," he said.

James Buescher finished third, followed by Ricky Carmichael and Jason White. Chevrolet swept the top-five positions.

Todd Bodine, in a Toyota, took the sixth spot.

Points leader Austin Dillon rebounded from a penalty in the closing laps to finish seventh. Dillon had been running fourth prior to the last caution, but NASCAR penalized him for not maintaining proper speed during the caution. He had to drop to the tail end of the lead lap for the final restart with two laps to go.

"I shut [the engine] off to save gas when I released fourth gear, and the thing that matters is I got it started up before I got to the start/finish line, and I thought I got all of my positions back," Dillon said. "The truck never stopped. It was rolling. If [NASCAR] can show me where I completely stopped and lost 20 positions...they can't, I don't think. I'll be waiting to see it."

Dillon now holds a three-point advantage over Buescher. Johnny Sauter fell 14 points behind after his 15th-place finish. Sauter was involved in an accident with his ThorSport teammate Matt Crafton on lap 36. He spent two laps on pit road for repairs.

Hornaday moved to within 16 points of Dillon, while Timothy Peters fell 42 markers out of the lead following his 23rd-place run.

Just three races remain -- Martinsville (October 29), Texas (November 4) and Homestead (Nov. 18).

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

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