Defending champ Edwards favored at Shelby 427
Carl Edwards is favored to win Sunday’s Shelby 427 Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which he narrowly won last year.
In betED.com Auto Racing betting odds, Edwards is at +350, followed closely by three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson at +400.
And not far behind is Daytona 500 winner Matt Kenseth at +450 and local boy Kyle Busch at +500.
Jeff Gordon, who won the Las Vegas race in 2001, is +650, as is Greg Biffle.
Check out betED.com for a full list of drivers and odds.
At the Shelby 427 last year, Edwards was able to shake off a pit-road penalty during the mid-stages and then hold off Dale Earnhardt Jr. over two late-race restarts to get his second-straight win.
Johnson, a three-time winner at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, moved up 12 spots in the 2009 Sprint Cup Series standings after a ninth-place finish at the Auto Club 500 in California last weekend.
With victories at Daytona and last week’s Auto Club 500, Kenseth became just the fifth driver to start the Sprint Cup Series season two-for-two. Kenseth can make NASCAR history this weekend, as no driver has ever won the first three races of the season.
Kenseth’s win last Sunday at California marked Roush Fenway Racing’s fifth consecutive victory in the February race at the two-mile oval at Fontana.
Kenseth leads the Sprint Cup standings by 81 points over Jeff Gordon in the championship standings.
Gordon, who is coming off a second-place finish at California, ended up finishing 35th at last year’s Shelby 427 after crashing. Gordon won at Las Vegas in 2001, the same year he captured his fourth Cup championship.
Edwards has moved up to ninth in points after his seventh-place finish at California.
