Vickers infuriates many at Martinsville

Autoracing Betting Lines

10/31/2011 - Martinsville, VA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Brian Vickers became driver enemy number one after Sunday's 500-lap slugfest at Martinsville Speedway. If Vickers did one thing right during the day, he left the racetrack quickly and quietly.

In a race that featured a season-high 18 cautions, Vickers was involved in five of them, including three that occurred during the first 100 laps. Jamie McMurray and Chase driver Matt Kenseth would've loved to have at it with Vickers after the dust had settled at NASCAR's shortest track. Jimmie Johnson might have wanted a word with him as well.

Vickers started the ruckus on lap 28 when he was involved in a crash with Regan Smith and Dave Blaney. He then tangled with Juan Pablo Montoya before bumping into Jamie McMurray and putting him into the outside wall. McMurray tried to retaliate against Vickers but made contact with the wall again.

"I saw [Vickers] get inside of me, and I tried to block, and I couldn't get down far enough," McMurray said. "When we got down in there, it seemed like he let off the brake a little early and sent me for a ride. It's just one of those really frustrating tracks, and it brings out the bad in people."

After banging each other's doors several times in the late going, Kenseth had enough of Vickers when he turned him around, forcing the 15th caution. Kenseth was involved in a multi-car wreck shortly after when he locked his brakes and spun around. He took out title contender Kyle Busch, as well as Joey Logano and Montoya.

"He just kept hitting me in the door," Kenseth said. "We're at Martinsville, and I gave him the bottom. Obviously, I'm not gonna roll over and let him go with 40 [laps] to go or whatever it was, and he just kept driving in harder and harder, and he slammed me in the door at least five times and just ran me up in the marbles, and I was just tired of it, so I spun him out."

Kenseth suffered a broken track bar during the multi-car wreck and spent several laps in the garage for repairs.

While Johnson was holding a comfortable lead with less than 10 laps to go, Vickers attempted to get even with Kenseth but failed in his efforts, as he spun around. The final caution setup a three-lap shootout to the finish. After the restart, Tony Stewart passed Johnson and then held him off at the finish. Stewart has won three of the first seven Chase races. He's also moved to within eight points of leader Carl Edwards.

"I certainly understand that if you're unfairly wrecked, regardless of who that person is, there's a chance retaliation is going to happen," Johnson said following his second-place finish. "After a fourth, fifth time with the same car in the crash, you start thinking about maybe you're the problem. Something is going on. You're having a bad day. You need to stop crashing for whatever reason."

Johnson certainly needed the win to help keep his slim title hopes alive. The five-time defending Sprint Cup Series champion is 43 points behind Edwards with just three races to go.

"I don't agree with the way things were handled at the end," Johnson noted. "Tony Stewart is sitting in victory lane smiling, and he's real happy it turned out that way."

Vickers, a non-Chase driver, finished 30th in his banged up No.83 Red Bull Toyota. He had no comment after the race. Vickers' future in Sprint Cup is in doubt right now, as Red Bull is pulling out of the sport at season's end.

Kenseth's 31st-place finish at Martinsville put him 36 points behind Edwards. He entered this race 14 points in back of his Roush Fenway Racing teammate.

Vickers wasn't the only culprit in the Martinsville demolition derby. Marcos Ambrose and Montoya clashed, while Kurt Busch got turned around by Paul Menard. Busch also had encounters with Jeff Burton and Ryan Newman.

Martinsville was indeed the latest chapter in NASCAR's "boys, have at it."

"It seemed like guys were ticked off at one another, driving over their heads," said third-place finisher Jeff Gordon, who bounced back after being involved in a six-car accident during the opening laps. "We saw that for a big majority of the race. Obviously, the 83 had that throughout the whole race. But I think it was just one of those crazy days. I don't know. You can't always explain it. Usually Martinsville does contribute towards that."

Stewart seemed to be the only one who wasn't caught up in the commotion at Martinsville, which was probably a good thing.

"I think they ought to get a portable boxing ring," he said. "As soon as they get done with the victory celebration, set the boxing ring on the frontstretch and give the fans a real show they paid for. If you want to boost the attendance at Martinsville, have a boxing match with each of the guys that had a beef with each other."

Ding, ding, ding!

Round eight in the Chase bout is Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway.

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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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