iNSIDE SCOOP: Odds Are...

Given the fact that two championship contenders everybody thought would still be contending are now on the sidelines, I thought it might be a good time to take a trip to Vegas and see what that did to the odds.

Well, it was a virtual trip, because what happens in Vegas costs too much to go to Vegas, if you catch my drift.

Anyway, I found the odds for this weekend's race at Martinsville, and they aren't surprising.

JEff Gordon, Team Hendrick's lone title contender after Talladega, is the best bet at 4:1, while Six-Time comes in at 5:1. There's a surprise. The two of them have taken turns dominating the .526-mile paperclip in recent years, with occasionaly forays by Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch.

It's the third-place guy that has me puzzled. Brad Keselowski hasn't really hit his car number at Martinsville, yet he and Kevin Harvick are at 6:1. Harvick won there in 2011, so I can see that. Hamlin, who ratchets it up every time there's a race in Virginia or Tennessee, is at 8:1, along with Joey Logano, who has never really done much at Martinsville.

Of course, Keselowski has won six times this season, and Logano has been blindingly quick, so there you go.

Kyle Busch has never won there, and he's 12:1, along with Matt Kenseth, who is getting a lot better. Dale Jr. is 15:1, though he has never won there. He did say, after Talladega, that his focus is on getting a clock, and I don't think he means going out to Wal-Mart and buying it.

Spring winner Kurt Busch is 30:1, which is odd. He beat the 48 and the 24 at their own game earlier this year, and you never have to worry about Kurt's motivation, do you?

The most consistent Chase driver left, Ryan Newman, is at 40:1, despite finishing in the top 10 three straight weeks heading in. He had this race won a couple years ago, but got pushed into a three-car scrum at the end and wound up parking both the 24 and 48. Clint Bowyer, who won that race, is at 18:1. 

What's that Twitter thing? SMH? That's what I'm doing.

Odds on any athletic contest are just mathematical probabilities dreamed up by people who are interested in earning money. Nothing wrong with that; that's what Vegas was built on, along with broken dreams and $5 lobster.

Handicapping a race at Martinsville is akin, to me, to blindfolding yourself, grabbing a dart and throwing it in the general direction of the board.

Gordon and Johnson are the closest things to mortal locks there since Richard Petty won in Petty Blue. Hamlin's another good shot. Kurt Busch deserves some love, as does Harvick, and Newman is lurking. He's the dark horse, along with Kenseth.

Really though, it all comes down to who is fast at the end, whose engine stands up the best and who is ticked off at whom.

Odds of a blowup on pit road are...fair to middling, I'd say.