Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): To start off this year's divisional races, second-year veteran Kr@tos was at the helm of the second-seeded overall division, the Hail Mary division, and he started its divisional race with a second-best divisional lead of 11 points over its second-place handicapper Jets69, who is also a second-year veteran. In fact, for all intents and purposes, regardless of the Hail Mary's two other divisional counterparts, meaning dbucc and rookie Kennypie86, this year's Hail Mary divisional promised to be a rematch of last year's intense battle for last year's Rookie-of-the-Year award between Kr@tos and Jets69, both of whom are friends in real life. But after the first-two weeks of this year's Hail Mary divisional race, and especially after this past weekend, the Hail Mary divisional race has inexplicably turned into this season's most thrilling divisional race after both dbucc and Kennypie86 amped up the suspense in the divisional race. For starters, two weeks ago dbucc rebound from a severe concussion and landed a 7-point outing, then in a dramatic follow up over this past weekend to his previous outing, the Donald connected on a 5-point exact-score hit and added a best-bet winner to finish his weekend with six points. More importantly for dbucc, the 13-point scoring outburst over the last two weeks enabled him to surpass Jets69 for second place in the division and reduced Kr@tos' divisional lead to just two points (Kr@tos 25 pts vs dbucc's 23 points). But the divisional race got even tighter this past weekend after rookie Kennypie86 rose from the ashes of a horrific start to his rookie season and banged out an improbable PERFECTA outing (8 pts) and also added a 1-point exact-score winner to end his outing with nine overall points. In essence, Kennypie86, who had been ridiculed for almost his entire rookie debut as a weakly looking "Ken Doll", broke through this weekend and finally made his bones in the Bookie Challenge competition. Or to put it differently, Kennypie86 finally registered his first-ever 6-point parlay hit of his Bookie Challenge career. What was even better for Kennypie was that he also, just like dbucc had done over the last two weeks, passed over Jets69 and in the process claimed third place in the division after amassing his 18th point of the season. The rookie upstart is now just a 7-pt outing from tying Kr@tos for the Hail Mary divisional lead and just five points from overtaking dbucc for the division's wild-card slot.

The Hail Mary's divisional race is made more intriguing when considering that Jets69 (16 pts) is in last place in the division after being passed up by both dbucc (23 pts) and Kennypie (18 pts) over this past weekend, but "Broadway Al" (aka Jets69) is presently tied with Driveline for owning the top best-bet record in the league (14-8-0 Win% .636). To note, Driveline is in second place in this year's Run-&-Shoot division. But getting back to the Hail Mary divisional race, its divisional leader Kr@tos goose egged his outing this past weekend and now finds himself hanging on to the divisional lead by a thread, thanks to the combined handicapping resurgences by both dbucc and Kennypie86 over the past weekend. In the case of Kennypie, he edged out dbucc this past weekend by nine points versus seven points to be credited with the "week-won", of which incidentally was Kennypie's second "week-won" of the season. For the record, the second week-won by Kennypie86 is only one behind the Biased Nihilist's league-leading total of three "weeks-won" on the season, of which a "week-won" has the potential to possibly be an important tiebreaker should the need arise. Interestingly, even though the Hail Mary divisional race got tighter over the past weekend, it's still not the tightest race in this year's competition, at least not so far. No, the closest divisional race is over in the Red Zone division, or the division that nobody within its ranks seems to want to grab the bull by the horns and take a significant lead of the division. At the moment, the breakdown of the Red Zone divisional race is as follows: Blitzkrieg (18pts), 7mick7 (16pts) and rookie Matty_Ice (13pts). As can easily be seen, only five points separates the division's leader Blitzkrieg from the division's last-place handicapper Matty_Ice. Of interest, the closely knit divisional races in the Hail Mary divisional race and the Red Zone divisional race are going to be a treat not only in the upcoming weekend but also in next week's Turkey Shoot weekend, when two full sets of weekly selections will be required to post by the league's handicappers.

Regardless, the way things have been shaking out in the Red Zone division, the Thanksgiving extravaganza may not matter, seeing as the two front-runners in the division--Blitzkrieg and 7mick7-- can't pick any best-bet winners to save their lives, never mind them hitting any parlay combinations. In fact, the handicapping machinations presently going on in the division by Blitzkrieg and 7mick7 has a "twilight-zone" aura to it, in which the absurd and the strange are the only things happening in the divisional race. For example, if not for 1-point exact-score hits by both Blitzkrieg and 7mick7, both handicappers would have goose egged their respective outings. As eerie as it sounds, if not for those aforementioned exact-score hits, Blitzkrieg would have laid his fourth-consecutive goose egg and 7mick7 would have recorded his third-straight scoreless outing (a golden goose and two goose egg outings in a row). And not to be left out of the scoreless fun, last-place rookie Matty_Ice did manage to officially lay a goose egg over the past weekend.

As it pertains to the remaining two divisional races, meaning the Corozal divisional race and the Run-&-Shoot divisional race, both the Biased Nihilist and Vikings17 are easily cruising, respectively, toward divisional titles. The Nihilist is handing his son an ass whopping of 17 points in the Corozal division, while Vikings17 is enjoying an 11-point lead over Driveline in the Run-&-Shoot division. Accordingly, since their respective divisional races are not warranting their immediate attention, both the Nihilist and Vikings17 are more locked into their battle against one another to see who between them will win this year's regular-season title. As of this writing, both handicappers are tied with 28 league-leading total points apiece, but the Nihilist is presently winning the regular-season battle because of the league's number-one tiebreaker, of which is more best-bet winners (the Nihilist 13 wins and Vikings17 10 wins).

• WARNING! WARNING! THIS YEAR'S TURKEY SHOOT IS NEARLY UPON US, AND WILL BEGIN ON THANKSGIVING DAY!: The Bookie Challenge's Turkey Shoot weekend is just around the corner, and simply put, it is the regular season's most pivotal outing of the season. In reality, the Turkey Shoot weekend requires for all handicappers to post two FULL sets of weekly selections. The first set of selections will require posting a regular set of weekly selections utilizing the three games on Thanksgiving day, to include selecting propostional selections for all three games. Then the second set of weekly selections are required to posted before the remaining games for the holiday weekend start on the Sunday of the Thanksgiving weekend. To avoid missing out on any Turkey Shoot selections, or getting selections disqualified, it BEHOOVES all handicappers to read the official rules, specifically SECTION VII: THE TURKEY SHOOT section of the official rules.



• WEEKLY TICKER.................After the Hall-of-Fame City Kid was dropped from the point standings of the Corozal division, jcvike28 is now the league leader in scoreless outings after having laid four goose eggs and one golden goose egg on the season....................This past weekend, Vikings17 registered his first scoreless outing of this season after he laid a goose egg for the weekend. But the Biased Nihilist was all smiles when he saw the Purple People Eater fail to score any points, and that's because the Biased Nihilist is now the only handicapper in the league to have not laid a goose egg nor a golden goose egg on the season....................For the first time in his 12 years of handicapping the Bookie Challenge competition, to include this season, jcvike28 selected all over/under picks for his weekly selections. The good news for him is that he won both of his over/under best-bets and finished this past weekend with three total points after adding a one-point exact-score hit.................