Montoya grabs pole for Brickyard 400

Autoracing Betting Lines

07/24/2010 - Indianapolis, IN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Juan Pablo Montoya captured the pole for the Brickyard 400 after posting the quickest lap in Saturday's qualifying at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Montoya edged defending race winner Jimmie Johnson for the pole with a lap of 182.278 m.p.h. The 34-year-old Colombian claimed his second pole of the season and the fourth of his Sprint Cup Series career. Montoya was fastest in both practice sessions on Friday at Indy.

"Our cars have come a long way," Montoya said. "Last year, we had a really fast car here, and I feel the same way this year. We still got to run the race. It's exciting when you go to a place, especially Indy, and you have a shot at winning and being this competitive."

One year ago, Montoya had the dominant car at Indy, as he led 116 of 160 laps. But Montoya was caught speeding on pit road during the final round of stops and had to serve a pass-through penalty. Johnson went on to claim his third Brickyard 400 victory, while Montoya settled for an 11th-place finish.

Montoya will attempt to become the first driver in history to win both the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400 at Indy. He won the Indy 500 in 2000.

His team owner, Chip Ganassi, also will try to become the first owner to win the Daytona 500, as well as the Indy 500 and the Brickyard 400 in the same season. Jamie McMurray won at Daytona for Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates in February, while Dario Franchitti captured the victory at Indianapolis for Target Chip Ganassi Racing in May.

"Our teams have had a good run of things here," Ganassi said. "We have a race to run tomorrow, and we have lots of goals in mind for the team this season, and this is just one more step today having the pole."

Johnson, the four-time defending series champion, qualified 0.04 seconds behind Montoya to take the outside pole.

"This qualifying session means a lot to people, not only for the track position and the pit stall, but it's just Indy," Johnson said.

Mark Martin, who won the pole at Indy last year, took the third spot, while Montoya's teammate, McMurray, claimed the fourth position.

"I had such a good race car that it didn't have to be perfect, but it was a good lap," Martin said. "We had no mistakes, but just tried to get a little too much in turn four."

Ryan Newman will start fifth, and Clint Bowyer will roll off sixth. Chevrolet swept the top-six starting positions for this race.

Greg Biffle gave Ford its best qualifying performance at Indy with a seventh starting spot.

Chevrolet drivers Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton completed the top-10. Harvick currently holds a 103-point lead over Gordon, who is a four- time Brickyard 400 winner.

David Gilliland, Casey Mears, David Stremme and J.J. Yeley failed to qualify.

Final practice at Indy is slated for later in the day, and Sunday's 400-mile race is scheduled to start around 1:00 p.m. (et).

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.

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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