Heading into Sunday’s NASCAR race at Martinsville Speedway in West Virginia, the assumption was that also Jimmie Johnson or Denny Hamlin would take the checkered flag. After all, they’d united to win nine straight races at the tricky short track. As it turned out, they weren’t even in the middle of the drivers battling for the victory at the end of the race. Kevin Harvick passed Dale Earnhardt, Jr. with four laps remaining to earn the first Martinsville victory since 1995 for his Richard Childress Racing team. Earnhardt was looking for his first win since June 2008, but had to settle for second place.

Nascar fanatics that backed Harvick as a 9-1 choice to win the Martinsville race received a nice payday for their investment. Denny Hamlin was a 7-2 favorite with Jimmie Johnson priced at 5-1 and Kyle Busch at 8-1. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. fans were lamenting not simply other loss for their favorite driver but those who had taken a wagering position on him missed out on an enormous score at 25-1.

After the race, Harvick realized that passing the hugely popular son of NASCAR symbol Dale Earnhardt, Sr. wasn’t going to be accepting warmly:

“As I was catching him, I’m like, ‘Man, I’m going to be the terrible guy here. I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do. I know the fans want to see him win. I want to see him win. It would be great for the sport and I think today went a long method to showing how difficult [Earnhardt] can be and that’s what we require. We all need him to win.

“But I’m not going to back down.”

Earnhardt admitted that he’s frustrated at the extended drought:

“I am frustrated. I got close. I ain’t won in a long time. I was imaging at the end I was destined to win the damn race.”

“I’ll probably think about it a million times what I probably could have done in a different,” he said. “If I know what’s greatest for me, I should probably have a good attitude about what happened today and probably go into the next race and use it as momentum and confidence, like any other good driver would do, instead of worrying about, you know, how close we came.”

Jimmie Johnson was flagged for speeding on pit road and was over 11th, though he disputed the reality of that penalty:

“I wasn’t speeding. They didn’t like how it looked, the way I supervised my timing lines. There is just no way. It won’t do me any good to have a talk [with NASCAR], it isn’t going to matter.”

NASCAR action will carry on next Saturday as the series heads to the Texas Speedway in Dallas for the first of two races at the talent this season. The following week they’ll be back on the high banked superspeedway tracks at Alabama’s Talladega Raceway.

Daniel Scott is the boss in a noted authority on bookmaking software. He loves cooking and his project cooking has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sports books and price per head sites. He lives Italy in next to his own restorant.