Briscoe edges Franchitti for Texas pole

Autoracing Betting Lines

06/04/2010 - Fort Worth, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ryan Briscoe won Friday's qualifying for the Firestone 500k IZOD IndyCar Series race after beating Dario Franchitti by the slimmest of margins at Texas Motor Speedway.

Briscoe from Team Penske earned his second pole of the season with a four-lap average of 215.273 m.p.h. He was 0.0057 seconds quicker than Franchitti, the reigning Indianapolis 500 champion and last year's series champion.

"I get a point here, but I've got a few more to catch up actually for this championship," said Briscoe, who is currently seventh in IndyCar points. "We really got to take it just one race at a time."

Briscoe, who finished third in the 2009 point standings, claimed his 10th career IndyCar pole.

Last year at Texas, Briscoe dominated the race by leading 160 of 228 laps, but teammate Helio Castroneves beat Briscoe out of the pits during the final round of stops and took the lead for good with 53 laps remaining.

"We had two very fast cars, and [Helio] just got us in the last pit stop, and he was really quick at the end of the race," Briscoe added.

Castroneves, who qualified fifth, has not won since one year ago at Texas. The Brazilian is a three-time race winner here.

Franchitti from Target Chip Ganassi Racing will start on the outside pole.

"I'm actually a little surprised that we ran as quick as we did, because in practice, the qualifying setup wasn't anywhere close to that," Franchitti said. "I was doing my thing in the car, and I didn't know how exactly close we were to Briscoe's time, but I guess it was pretty close in the end."

Will Power, the current points leader and Briscoe's teammate, qualified third, while Ganassi's Scott Dixon took the fourth spot.

Alex Lloyd, Hideki Mutoh, Danica Patrick, Mario Moraes and Marco Andretti completed the top-10.

Tomas Scheckter, who is substituting for the injured Mike Conway in the No.24 Dreyer and Reinbold Racing car, qualified 18th.

Conway sustained back and leg injuries during a hard crash in the closing laps of the Indy 500. He underwent surgery earlier this week to repair fractures to his lower left leg. He also was fitted for a back brace, which he will wear for at least three months.

Ryan Hunter-Reay, who also was involved in the late-race incident at Indy, had surgery on his left thumb and was fitted with a carbon fiber splint this week. He qualified 24th in the 26-car field.

Saturday's 550-kilometer race at Texas is scheduled to start at 8:45 p.m. (et).

7decks Autoracing Betting News

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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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