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11/06/2011 - Fort Worth, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - When is Kyle Busch finally going to grow up?
NASCAR's drama king has really done it this time. After Busch deliberately wrecked Ron Hornaday Jr. in the early going of Friday night's Camping World Truck Series event at Texas Motor Speedway, NASCAR parked him for the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series races here this weekend.
Busch might be facing further actions by NASCAR, as well as Joe Gibbs Racing.
After getting married last December, the "rowdy" side of Busch was supposed to disappear. Not so in 2011.
Consider how disorderly Busch has been so far this year.
In May, he was placed on probation for four weeks and received a $25,000 fine for his post-race physical altercation with Richard Childress Racing driver Kevin Harvick at Darlington.
The feud between Busch and Harvick has been on-going throughout the season, especially after Busch's retaliation against Hornaday at Texas. Hornaday, a record four-time Truck Series champion, presently drives for Kevin Harvick Inc.
Several weeks after his Darlington incident, Busch's troubles continued when he was cited for driving his Lexus LFA sports car at 128 mph in a 45 mph zone near the North Carolina town of Troutman. He later pled guilty to the charges, in which he received a $1,000 fine and had his state drivers license revoked for 45 days.
Then in June, he was involved in an altercation with team owner Richard Childress at Kansas. The skirmish between the two occurred in the garage area shortly after the truck race there, with Childress allegedly punching Busch several times. Busch purposely hit the side of Joey Coulter's truck during the cool-down lap in the Kansas race. Coulter, a rookie this season, drives for RCR.
Texas was certainly the big one for Busch, as his non-participation in Sunday's 500-mile Sprint Cup race will indeed end any hopes of him winning the Sprint Cup Series title. He came to Texas trailing leader Carl Edwards by 57 points in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship standings.
What's most disturbing about his retaliation against Hornaday is that he put Hornaday's life in danger, especially at a time when driver safety has become a major issue following the fatal crash of Dan Wheldon in last month's IndyCar race at Las Vegas. Busch hit the back of Hornaday at a high speed and then slammed him hard into the outside wall during the caution.
Hornaday came to Texas 15 points behind leader Austin Dillon in the truck standings, but Busch ruined Hornaday's opportunity to claim another series title. He trails Dillon by 48 points with only one race to go -- November 18 at Homestead, FL.
On Saturday night, Busch released a statement to apologize for his latest outburst.
"I want to sincerely apologize for my actions during Friday night's Truck Series race at Texas," Busch said in his statement. "I apologize to my fans, all my sponsors, everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing and Kyle Busch Motorsports...I'd also like to apologize to Ron Hornaday Jr., and everyone associated with the No.33 team in the Truck Series."
Busch also accepted NASCAR's actions taken against him.
"I understand why I was taken out of the car for the rest of the weekend," he noted. "NASCAR officials had to act, and I accept their punishment and take full responsibility for my actions. As a racecar driver, the hardest thing to do is to sit on the sidelines listening to cars on the track when you know you should be out there competing. For this, I have no one to blame but myself."
Busch attended Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Texas, sitting atop his team's pit box and watching Michael McDowell drive his car around the fast 1.5-mile track.
There's no doubt that Busch's latest escapade has jeopardized JGR's relationship with its sponsors for his No.18 team in NASCAR's top-two series.
"I think right now we're just trying to handle the first things first for us, and there's so many things to consider and so many people to meet with," team owner Joe Gibbs said during a press conference on Saturday at Texas. "I think we're still early in the process, and we're trying to work our way through it as best and fast as we can."
Busch became the third driver to be suspended for a Cup race within the past decade.
Harvick sat out the 2002 spring Cup race at Martinsville one day after he was parked for rough driving in the truck event there. NASCAR also grounded Robby Gordon for the August 2007 race at Pocono following his on-track altercation with Marcos Ambrose in the inaugural Nationwide event at Montreal.
Prior to the start of the 2010 season, NASCAR adopted its "boys, have at it" policy, in which the sanctioning body relaxed on patrolling its drivers in handling affairs on the racetrack.
But in some cases, NASCAR officials have been forced to take actions lighter than the one they did against Busch, particularly the incident between Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski in last year's spring Cup race at Atlanta. Edwards intentionally wrecked Keselowski, putting him airborne and then into the wall along the frontstretch.
"It's natural in our industry and our sport, for NASCAR's regulatory responsibilities, to watch the evolution of a policy or procedure and learn from it and possibly react differently," NASCAR President Mike Helton said. "Although I would remind you in the incident with Carl Edwards and Keselowski in Atlanta, there was a reaction for us. There was points and money involved in that reaction, so there was some sort of reaction.
"There's been a lot of other occurrences that we felt like were more in opportunity to responsibility given to drivers along the way, but there are lines that have been crossed. The 18 [Busch] and 29 [Harvick] in Darlington got a reaction from us. [Friday night's truck race at Texas] is the most severe reaction under these circumstances."
Busch's actions at Texas clearly crossed the line of boys, have at it, and NASCAR sent the right message by parking him for the remainder of this weekend's activities.
If there's one thing Busch should learn from all of this...it's time to grow up.
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In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.
And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.
Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.
So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.
Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)
The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.
As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.
The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.
In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.
Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.
And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.
So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.
There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.
So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.
And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.
There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)
Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.
Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.
Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.
So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.
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