Race<\/strong>: Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway NASCAR only races here once a year now and there are several unpredictable variables playing into the race conditions, including practicing during the daytime and racing at nighttime, using the new spoiler and double file restarts here for the first time, and dealing with a new tire combination from Goodyear. <\/p>\n Perhaps that is why so many teams are already in backup cars thanks to practice mishaps Friday, including Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch, Clint Bowyer, Greg Biffle, Scott Speed, Marcos Ambrose, Casey Mears and Joe Nemechek (Mears and Nemecheck missed the qualifying cut). <\/p>\n Jamie McMurray and Jeff Gordon start on the front row with Brian Vickers, David Reutimann, and Mark Martin rounding out the top five.<\/p>\n Safe Bets:<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. Jeff Gordon (9\/2): <\/strong> Gordon is the winningest active driver at Darlington, having won seven races in 29 starts. Gordon missed the pole by just seven-thousandths of a second and was eighth-fastest in Happy Hour. Gordon said, “This is a compromising race track. If you’re good in one and two, you’re going to be too tight in three and four, or if you’re free in one and two, you might be good in three and four. <\/p>\n It’s a track that you’re never going to be just perfect.”<\/p>\n . 2. Denny Hamlin (6\/1):<\/strong> Hamlin has one of the hot shoes in NASCAR right now, winning two of the last five races despite recent knee surgery. He ran second and fifth in practice Friday, qualified eighth, and won the Nationwide race Friday night. Despite not posting a win in four starts here, Hamlin finished second in 2007 and has never finished lower than 13th. <\/p>\n Dark Horse:<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. Ryan Newman (22\/1):<\/strong> Newman is among the top five drivers in total points at Darlington over the last five races (some with Penske Racing), ran fourth in final practice, and qualified sixth. Though he hasn’t posted a win here, he has finished in the top-5 five times in 11 starts, including finishing fourth last year after leading 48 laps. <\/p>\n Newman finished second at Darlington in 2002 and third in 2004. Summary<\/strong>: Jimmie Johnson has the best average finish at Darlington among active drivers with three or more starts and Denny Hamlin is second on that list. Jeff Gordon has the highest driver rating here based on races from 2005 on, with Johnson a close second. <\/p>\n Mark Martin won this race last year and qualified fifth for this race, but Kyle Busch, the ’08 winner, qualified 39th and has been struggling this weekend.<\/p>\n Showtime Southern 500 Odds to win 2010 Southern 500 Nascar Race <\/strong><\/p>\n Jeff Gordon 6\/1 <\/strong> 2010 Southern 500 betting preview and racing picks from motorsports gambling experts at capperspicks.com nascar betting site for the upcoming Nascar race at Darlington Raceway…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":22350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[24184,28810,24185,10364,13749,10358,10643,28811,13743,13748,13744],"class_list":["post-22348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-2010-nascar-picks","tag-2010-southern-500","tag-2010-sprint-cup","tag-becca-gladden-articles","tag-darlington-raceway","tag-free-nascar-picks","tag-free-nascar-predictions","tag-odds-to-win-2010-southern-500","tag-southern-500","tag-southern-500-gambling","tag-southern-500-lines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22348"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22355,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22348\/revisions\/22355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nDate<\/strong>: Saturday, May 8, 2010
\nTime<\/strong>: 7:44 PM EST (scheduled Green Flag)
\nTV<\/strong>: 7:30 PM EST on FOX<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/media.partners.betus.com\/BANNERS\/racing\/sportsbook_AutoRacing_250X250_mybanner.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nFrom Darlington Raceway
\nTime: 7:45pm ET<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nKyle Busch 6\/1
\nJimmie Johnson 6\/1
\nDenny Hamlin 8\/1
\nMark Martin 12\/1
\nJeff Burton 12\/1
\nKevin Harvick 12\/1
\nKurt Busch 12\/1
\nTony Stewart 15\/1
\nClint Bowyer 18\/1
\nCarl Edwards 20\/1
\nMatt Kenseth 20\/1
\nGreg Biffle 20\/1
\nKasey Kahne 25\/1
\nJuan Pablo Montoya 25\/1
\nDale Earnhardt Jr 25\/1
\nJoey Logano 25\/1
\nBrian Vickers 30\/1
\nDavid Reutimann 40\/1
\nMartin Truex Jr 40\/1
\nRyan Newman 40\/1
\nBrad Keselowski 50\/1
\nJamie McMurray 50\/1
\nBobby Labonte 100\/1
\nRegan Smith 100\/1
\nScott Speed 100\/1
\nPaul Menard 100\/1
\nElliott Sadler 100\/1
\nAJ Allmendinger 100\/1
\nMarcos Ambrose 100\/1
\nDavid Ragan 100\/1
\nTravis Kvapil 100\/1
\nSam Hornish Jr 100\/1
\nField (Any Other Driver) 100\/1<\/p>\nThe 2010 Southern 500 Gambling! Open A Nascar Betting Acct. @ Betus – Get up to 145% in bonuses, + qualify for yearly Nascar Contests – CLICK HERE!\u2026<\/a><\/h3>\n
\nBecca Gladden is a freelance writer and race handicapper specializing in NASCAR.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"