Ambrose aiming for Watkins Glen trifecta

Autoracing Betting Lines

08/03/2010 - Watkins Glen, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Series: NASCAR Nationwide. Date: Saturday, August 7. Race: Zippo 200. Site: Watkins Glen International. Track: 2.45-mile road course. Start time: 2:00 p.m. (et). Laps: 82. Miles: 200.9. 2009 winner: Marcos Ambrose. Television: ESPN. Radio: Motor Racing Network (MRN)/SIRIUS NASCAR Radio.

The Nationwide Series will join Sprint Cup this weekend at Watkins Glen International. This will be the second of three road course races for Nationwide this year. Carl Edwards won the inaugural event at the Road America road course in Wisconsin two months ago. Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal is scheduled for August 29.

Marcos Ambrose will attempt to win his third consecutive Nationwide race at Watkins Glen. If Ambrose does so, he will join Terry Labonte as those drivers who have won three Nationwide events in a row here. Labonte won at The Glen from 1994-96. He also scored the victory in the inaugural race here in 1991.

Ambrose, a Sprint Cup regular, has yet to compete in a Nationwide event this year. He ran a full-schedule in that series from 2007-08 before he was elevated to Cup full-time last year.

Ambrose competed in just two Nationwide races during the '09 season, with a win at Watkins Glen and a second-place finish at Montreal.

"I've got a good base setup that I carry to all the road course races, and I really know what I'm looking for," Ambrose said. "We don't have to muck around with trial and error, and I pretty much engineer it from the seat, because I have such a clear vision of what I need to do to get around these places well. I guess I lacked that at some ovals and other places we go to."

Kyle Busch is perhaps Ambrose's biggest threat for a three-peat at Watkins Glen. Busch has accumulated nine wins in his 17 Nationwide starts this year, including victories at Iowa last Saturday and O'Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis the week before. He is one win away from tying the series record for most victories in a season with 10, a record he shares with Sam Ard.

One more win in either the Sprint Cup, Nationwide or Camping World Series will give the 25-year-old Busch his 75th career victory in NASCAR.

"It's pretty big," Busch said. "It's a lot of them, but it's not quite where I want to be. The big number is 200, so hopefully I can get there. We're 25 away from cracking halfway there, and I might be able to get it here in the next two years, so that would be pretty cool."

Richard Petty holds the all-time record with 200 wins in NASCAR's premier series.

Busch has finished second to Ambrose in the last two Nationwide races at Watkins Glen.

Last year, Ambrose passed Busch late in the race, with a maneuver Ambrose called a "dive bomb," and one Busch referred to as "cheap-shotted."

Forty-two teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Zippo 200.

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Big 12 Conference betting odds

Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.

Work left to do:

Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.

Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.

Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.