Say Motor Sport to many punters and they'll instantly discount it as boring and repetitive, but there's far more to it than two dominant Formula 1 teams playing follow the leader. In addition to the extravagance of F1, there's MotoGP, NASCAR, speedway, World Superbikes, V8 Supercars, World Rally Championship and more. It's amazing how much more interesting a sport can become once you understand how to make money betting on it. Take in some of the shrewd advice of our resident petrolheads and enjoy a different type of horsepower!

America's favourite motor sport is NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing). It pulls bigger ratings than any other sport in the US bar the NFL and has an incredibly loyal following, particularly in the southern states. Some venues hold over 170,000 fans on raceday and sell out. Most races are conducted on banked oval circuits with speeds of over 200mph requiring drivers at the longer tracks of Daytona and Talladega to use restrictor plates to slow cars down for safety. Races at these tracks are even more competitive as straight-line speed is similar in all vehicles.

SkySports now televise the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series live on Sunday nights. The season starts in February and continues through to November. 43 cars start each race meaning traffic is a problem from the green flag. Pit stops occur regularly throughout races which vary in distance but are usually 400-500 miles. Any incident on the track results in a yellow caution flag which invariably starts a mad rush into the pits (stopping to refuel or change tyres while cars are travelling at 1/3 pace under a caution flag is much better than going a lap down while the race is at full pace).

The Daytona 500 is the marquee event of NASCAR, and peculiarly, starts the season. The evenness of this code of motor racing was displayed in 2008 when a caution flag late in the race meant the race restarted with just three laps left to run (a NASCAR race cannot finish under a yellow flag - the laps remaining figure is frozen so that at least two laps are run under a green flag complete the race). 32 cars were still on the lead lap, and any of 10 cars could have won the race. Ryan Newman, a 25/1 shot pre-race, took advantage of the slipstream and then a shunt from behind by a teammate to get the momentum to overtake the leading cars and cross the finish line first - the only time in the entire race he led the field.

In 1979, the Daytona 500 became the first stock car race that was nationally televised from flag to flag on CBS. The leaders going into the last lap, Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison, wrecked on the backstretch while dicing for the lead, allowing Richard Petty to pass them both and win the race. Immediately, Yarborough, Allison, and Allison's brother Bobby were engaged in a fistfight on national television. This underlined the drama and emotion of the sport and increased its broadcast marketability. Luckily for NASCAR, the race coincided with a major snowstorm along the United States' eastern seaboard, successfully introducing much of the captive audience to the sport.

What to look for:

A good qualifying result doesn't mean a lot - with 200 laps required in most races, the difference between 1st and 20th on the grid is minimal so don't go lumping on a driver just because he is on the front row. Tracks have individual characteristics - Daytona is long and requires restrictor plates, Watkins Glen is a road circuit with left and right turns rather than an oval, Bristol is a short-track (about half a mile long) meaning the backmarkers are half a lap behind before they've even started.

The cars are almost identical and the drivers are all good. What often makes the difference are the pit crew and the spotters. When there's a mad charge for pit lane under a caution flag, the order they leave the pits is the order they restart the race, so losing half a second changing a tyre that doesn't want to come off is costly. The spotter is effectively the mirrors for a driver. Drivers only have a small rear-view mirror and can't see much of what goes on around them so they each have a spotter in the infield or grandstand who is constantly telling them where their rivals are, if they have space on their outside etc. Cars race so close together that the slightest touch can send a car into the wall and cause chaos to the drivers behind.

Bookies' odds for race winner are usually set in Vegas and to ridiculously high percentages (150% ). It's a great market to lay many drivers in as there will always be people have their favourite drivers or see the race on TV and decide to throw a fiver on it for an interest, without really knowing what the true price is. With the racing so close, you should never see a driver trading odds-on before the last 20 laps at most.

Sites to visit

NASCAR - live scoring, driver profiles, news and statistics

Covers.com NASCAR coverage - previews, news and statistics from a betting angle

Yahoo Sports NASCAR coverage - news and results

Regularly broadcast live on Sky Sports and popular in central and eastern Europe and Scandinavia, speedway riders are often proclaimed the most courageous of all - their bikes have no brakes and only one gear! Racing on tight oval dirt-tracks, each race takes about a minute to complete the standard four laps. Four compete in each race, and naturally on such tight circuits, leading into the first bend is a huge advantage.

The major competitions offered on Betfair are the British Elite League and Grand Prix events. In League competition, nine teams compete over a season in home and away matches (double series of fixtures - 32 meetings each). Two riders from each team take part in each race, with the home side wearing the blue and red helmets against the green and yellow & black quartered helmet of the visitors. There are 15 heats with points scored in each race (3,2,1,0 pts for first through to fourth) to decide the winner of each match.

For further details about scoring and rules, visit the British Speedway website. Betfair offer Match Odds and Handicap markets on the Elite League and televised Premier League matches. All matches go in-play which is when the betting gets very interesting.

What to look for:

Home advantage for in a match is usually around 6-10pts, but the away teams are given extra incentive - victory on the road is worth three points on the league table, rather than two at home.

Tactical plays. Each team brings reserve riders who can be used to replace injured riders or a rider performing poorly. When a team has fallen at least 9pts behind, to keep the tie competitive, they can use a 'joker play' worth double points. The scheduled rider using this play (single rider, not team) then scores double points on that race. A second tactical play (usually the substitution of a better rider) for double points is allowed, but the sub must start from a handicap of 15m.

Team news is just as important in speedway as it is in other sports. Check out the team websites to confirm the line-ups for the next race.

Grand Prix events are individual events run over the course of a season to determine the Speedway World Champion. The format for a Speedway Grand Prix has changed for the 2007 season. Sixteen riders take part in each Grand Prix and over the course of twenty heats each rider will race against every other rider once. The top eight scorers advance to a semi-final and from each semi-final the 1st and 2nd placed riders will advance to the GP final. Winner and Top 3 markets are offered on each event by Betfair. For more details on rules, schedules, and scoring, visit Speedwayworld.

Other handy sites:

Speedway on SkySports - TV schedules and news