Sprint Cup Series does Vegas

The new Sprint Cup season is off to an interesting start, with a rookie longshot winning the Daytona 500 and a veteran breaking a long winless streak last week. This week NASCAR stops in Sin City itself for the running of, and the festivities surrounding, the Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Sunday 3 pm Eastern, Fox).

Last Sunday Jeff Gordon led a race-high 138 laps, made a late pass, and won for the first time in nearly two full years, taking the checkered at the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix. Kyle Busch took second, Jimmie Johnson third, Kevin Harvick fourth, and Ryan Newman fifth.

oddsmaker.ag opened Gordon at +1,200 on last week's NASCAR betting board, but he eventually went off at +2,000. Johnson started out the co-favorite, along with Denny Hamlin, at +500, then got bet into the outright fave at +300. Kyle Busch got bet down from +700 to +500, while Newman started and ended at +2,500.

Kurt Busch started out at +1,800 last week, got bet all the way down to +400, then finished eighth.

One year ago Gordon led almost the entire race at Las Vegas, but Johnson took the lead with 17 to go and won the Shelby American. Harvick placed second, Gordon third, Mark Martin fourth, and Matt Kenseth fifth.

So Johnson has won four of the last six Sprint Cup races at Las Vegas.

Over the last five Las Vegas Sprint Cup events hometown kid Kyle Busch, with a win and two other top-10 placements, owns the best average finish at 7.8. Jeff Burton, with three top-10s, is next at 8.2; and Greg Biffle, with four top-10s, comes next at 8.8. Johnson finished a bit lower on this list, at 11.2, because he ended up 24th here two years ago.

As of Wednesday morning oddsmaker.ag is listing Johnson as the favorite on its Kobalt Tools 400 board at +300, followed by Kyle Busch at +600; Gordon at +700; Carl Edwards at +800; Hamlin and Tony Stewart at +1,000; Greg Biffle at +2,000; Clint Bowyer, Kenseth, Joey Logano, Jeff Burton, and Martin at +2,500; and Juan Montoya, Brian Vickers, Kasey Kahne, Newman, and Jamie McMurray at +3,000

David Reutimann and Dale Junior are next at +4,000; AJ Allmendinger and Martin Truex are at +6,000; and freshly famous Trevor Bayne, Regan Smith, David Ragan, Brad Keselowski, Bobby Labonte, David Gilliland, Marcos Ambrose, and Paul Menard are all at +10,000.

And �The Field,� a winner already once this season with Bayne at Daytona, is getting +5,000.

Oddsmaker is also offering driver vs. driver matchups on Friday's Kobalt 400 qualifying, and those bets can be parlayed.