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Pro Sports Wrap - by Sam Ruesler

Pro Sports Wrap - March 2009

Last week wasn't exactly a great week for our NASCAR preview as the five drivers we had to watch, well one didn't even finish the race, a couple probably shouldn't have and well....well, let's just focus on this week, where we don't think a Busch will win.

Martinsville is another short track, but has a different look from Bristol. It's a little bit shorter and has shorter straightaways. There's a lot of strategy in the turns here.
Jimmie Johnson has dominated the short track at Martinsville.


One guy who has seemed to figure out that strategy is Jeff Gordon. In 32 races at Martinsville, he has finished in the Top Five 20 times and 26 Top Tens. That's pretty impressive, as is his 6.9 average finish at the track. But this year, Gordon has yet to win a race yet still is the overall points leader.

The one guy who could keep him from winning this week is his own teammate, Jimmie Johnson, who has even better numbers at the track. Johnson had five wins and 10 Top Fives in only 14 races. He has 13 Top Tens here (his only finish outside the Top Ten was his first race here) with an average finish of 5.6.

Between the two of them, they have won nine of the last 12 races here. By contrast, the Busch brothers have only eight Top Tens in 25 races here and Kurt has the only win.

Denny Hamlin, who settled for second place last week while concentrating on holding off Johnson while Kyle Busch won the race, can make a good run this week too. His win here last year was his only win here in seven races, but has six Top Ten finishes and four Top Fives.


We also like the third Hendricks driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., to be in contention here. He has eight Top Fives.

And for a fifth drive, watch Jeff Burton. He won't won (he never seems to want to win nowadays, just happy to finish strong), but could make the top three.


Last year this race saw 18 cautions, and 17 drivers finished on the lead lap. We like only about 10 drivers on the lead lap this year, with about the same number of cautions (18). It should be a fun race.



Don't forget to check out the new blogsite prosportswrapup where myself and a lot of your favorite orble.com bloggers have begun bloging.
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NASCAR at Bristol

March 19th 2009 23:31
After a week off, NASCAR heads to the short track of Bristol in a race that has extra importance with it setting the top 35, which determines the automatic qualifiers for each week's races.

We've already briefly explored who is where on that list, so now lets focus on Bristol and who will be the person to beat.
A lot of drivers tell you that at Daytona and Talladega they know a big wreck is coming, and the key is to stay out of it. But a lot will tell you that the Bristol short track makes them nervous. The issue at Bristol is because it's such a short track, getting lapped is always on your mind if you aren't in the lead or near it. In the two Bristol races last year, only 14 drivers were on the lead lap in the first race, and 15 in the second.


It's kinda of a good news/bad news thing. The bad news is the fear of being lapped, and because of that a lot of drivers drive extremely aggressive to move up in traffic, so starting position is often crucial. The good news is because it is such a short track, it is difficult for the leaders to lap traffic, and at the same time, it's hard for a leader to pull away.

One driver who has found success here is Kurt Busch. Busch has won five times in 16 starts and has nine top 10 finishes.

Matt Kenseth only has one win in 18 races here, but finds a way to the top with 11 top 10s.

This is also the track for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to maybe start getting back on track. He may not win the race, but he has an average finish of 11.7 and has 10 top 10 finishes.

His teammate Jeff Gordon is the man to beat, both on the season and at Bristol. His experience here (32 races) has paid off with five wins and 19 top 10s and he averages an 11.5 finish.

He should get a serious challenge from Greg Biffle, who has dominated in his few starts here, but is looking for his first win. Nine top 10 finishes is 12 starts and an average finish of 9.8. We think it's time for his first win.

This post can also be found at our new home prosportswrapup.com
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Let the Madness Begin!

March 15th 2009 23:02


2009 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball March Madness Tournament

The brackets are now filled. There are a few surprises, and even more that was not surprising. The biggest thing that is NOT a surprise the system is flawed and favors the "power conferences".

The top conferences were:

7 teams - ACC, Big East, and Big Ten

6 teams - Big 12, Pac 10

Some of the bubbles that got burst were; San Diego State, Saint Mary's, Creighton, Virginia Tech, and Penn State.

The Midwest will play the West, while the East will play the South.

Midwest Region

1 - Louisville (Overall #1)
16 - Alabama State / Moorehead State

Click here to see the entire bracket.
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Announcing Our New Sister-Site

March 13th 2009 09:54
We are expanding our site www.prosportswrap.com to include our bran new sister-site www.ProSportsWrapUp.com.

We invite you to go and check out the new site as we work out some of the final kinks. We will still be posting on both sites in the coming months. With the NASCAR season revving up and baseball season about to start there is sure to be plenty to write about.

Be sure to stay tuned for a full coverage of NASCAR, the Tennis Grand Slams, and so much more. Fans of Arena Football will be especially happy in about a month or so when we launch a special new feature focused solely on the AF2 league.

GO Tulsa Talons!

Again that is Pro Sports Wrap Up . com
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Off week for NASCAR

March 12th 2009 17:38
There isn't a NASCAR Sprint Cup race this coming week, so we'll look instead at where NASCAR stands four races in.

Of course last week the winner, Kurt Busch, wasn't on our radar. We weren't thinking about back-to-back Busches so we admit we overlooked that one


[ Click here to read more ]
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NASCAR in Atlanta

March 4th 2009 09:32
If you've been paying attention to our NASCAR posts so far, you've no doubt noticed the winner of the last two races have been in our short list of guys to watch for each time. And last week, of the seven drivers we spotlighted (including Brian Vickers and both Busch brothers, even though we looked mainly at Kyle), we had the winner, the third place, 7th place and 8th place finisher. Most race teams would be thrilled with that percentage of top tens.
So now that NASCAR is going to Atlanta and getting out of the western time zones, what do we look for this week?

[ Click here to read more ]
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