Martin leads Hendrick front row sweep at Talladega

Autoracing Betting Lines

10/22/2011 - Talladega, AL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Mark Martin grabbed the pole for the Good Sam Club 500, while his teammate, Jimmie Johnson, qualified second to give Hendrick Motorsports the front starting row for Sunday's race at Talladega Superspeedway.

Martin turned a lap at 181.367 mph around the 2.66-mile superspeedway for his 51st career pole, which ranks him eighth on the Sprint Cup Series' all-time pole winners list.

"That's a huge number," Martin said. "It's pretty incredible, and it's speaks highly of all the people who have worked on my race cars through the years. I've had the privilege of driving so many fast race cars. This is such a tremendous team effort from everybody at Hendrick Motorsports."

It was Martin's second pole of the season and his third in 48 races at Talladega. His first pole this season came in July at Daytona -- the most recent restrictor-plate event.

Martin edged Johnson for the Talladega pole by only 0.002 seconds.

HMS has dominated qualifying on restrictor-plate tracks (Talladega and Daytona) this season. Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the pole for the Daytona 500, and Jeff Gordon claimed the top starting spot for the spring race at Talladega.

"We've been able to flex a lot of muscle on the restrictor-plate stuff lately, so I'm very proud of everyone at HMS," said Johnson, who won at Talladega earlier this year.

Team owner Rick Hendrick is one win away from capturing his 200th in NASCAR's premier series.

Clint Bowyer, the defending race winner, qualified third. Bowyer is leaving Richard Childress Racing at the end of the season to drive for Michael Waltrip Racing next year. He would love nothing more than to win one of his last five races with RCR.

"It would be a good way to cap off this relationship, and I couldn't think of a better way to do it than right here at Talladega," Bowyer said.

Trevor Bayne, who won this year's Daytona 500, qualified fourth. HMS teammates Gordon and Earnhardt Jr. took the fifth and sixth positions, respectively.

Paul Menard, David Ragan, Carl Edwards, the current points leader, and Ryan Newman completed the top-10.

Edwards enters the race with a five-point advantage over Kevin Harvick, who will start 13th. Matt Kenseth, last weekend's race winner at Charlotte, is presently seven points behind Edwards, who is his teammate at Roush Fenway Racing. Kenseth qualified 11th.

Johnson, attempting to win his record-extending sixth straight Sprint Cup championship, is 35 points out of the lead.

Geoffrey Bodine, Scott Speed, T.J. Bell and Josh Wise failed to qualify.

The 500-mile race at Talladega is scheduled to start just after 2:00 p.m. (et).

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Big Ten Conference odds

Teams that should be in: Michigan State, Indiana
Work left to do: Illinois, Purdue, Michigan, Iowa

Behind the big two, the pecking order might be in a bit of flux. Has Michigan State passed Indiana after handling the Hoosiers in East Lansing? Where is Illinois in that mix? What looked like a four-big league last week could be morphing into five -- and even six is not unthinkable at this point if everything breaks right.

Should be in:

Michigan State [21-8 (8-6), RPI: 20, SOS: 15] The Spartans made it four-for-four on the homestand, a gigantic accomplishment that leaves them in extremely good shape. MSU is only 1-6 on the road and is at Michigan and at Wisconsin to close things out, meaning the date with the Wolverines on Tuesday looms very, very large. Beating Texas early will hold up well, as will the rout of Bradley and the win over BYU, but will 8-8 be enough? It very well could be, as the computer numbers are good, but why chance it?

Indiana [18-9 (8-6), RPI: 24, SOS: 32] Hmm ... good thing the last two are at Northwestern and home to Penn State, because IU might want to get both to feel completely safe after dropping its third in the last four, fading after halftime at Michigan State. Who knew the best nonconference win would be over Southern Illinois, which is a gift that keeps on giving for the Hoosiers. The win over Wisconsin also looks good on the mantel.

Work left to do:

Illinois [21-9 (9-6), RPI: 31, SOS: 25] A good performance at Penn State leaves the Illini in pretty good shape. Can they go to Iowa and take care of business to really look on their way? That's a huge game, as there is a possible cluster of teams that will end at 9-7. Illinois beat Bradley, but has lost to Xavier. A 9-7 mark and a semifinals trip in Chicago could be enough with the computer profile hanging in there, but it would be better not to mess around, clinching at least a tie for third.

Purdue [18-10 (7-7), RPI: 47, SOS: 28] Couldn't get it done at Iowa, but did win at Northwestern to put 9-7 squarely in sight. Where does that leave the Boilermakers, though? Even if they beat Minnesota and Northwestern at home, that won't help the computer numbers. Nonconference wins over Virginia, DePaul and Oklahoma are solid, but not spectacular. The Boilers very well might need an upset in the B10 quarters to have a legit claim.

Michigan [19-10 (7-7), RPI: 55, SOS: 53] Well, Michigan did what it needed to do, winning at Minnesota to take control of its fate. The Wolverines have Michigan State and an already-wrapped-up-the-league Ohio State at home to close, so the chances are there. Win both and we can talk. There is no marquee win yet in the profile, and the Wolverines were splattered in several games against name opponents. A mediocre computer profile fueled by a lack of road wins isn't helping, either.

Iowa [16-12 (8-6), RPI: 80, SOS: 64] For the sake of being complete, we'll add Iowa, this season's Stanford. It's plausible that the Hawkeyes could get to 10-6 (at Penn State, vs. Illinois left), but where does that leave them after a gruesome nonconference performance where the best win was over ... Toledo? Iowa State? Cornell?? If they get to 10-6, we can start to look at what they need to do in the B10 tourney, although my gut sense is that they would need to make the final and have knocked off Ohio State or Wisconsin on the way to have any real claim.

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