Walsh: Brutal 15-1 NASCAR Loss Stirs Up Painful Ghosts of Bad Beats Past

I'm not going to lie. This one hurts to write. If you bet on sports long enough, you end up being the victim of more bad beats than you'd like to admit, but it doesn't make them any easier.

For the most part, I've become almost robotic about them. Bad beats are simply part of the game.

At that ultimate point of extreme disappointment, I've done everything right; handicapped the event correctly, got money down on the right wager and have, what seems to be, a nice winner headed my way.

However, just like the girl who got away, sometimes there are heartbreaking beats that linger with you much longer than the others.

One of those life-changing bad beats happened to me less than 24 hours ago.

In Sunday's NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, I had a nice wager on Todd Gilliland to win at 15-1 odds. Gilliland led 35 of 65 laps at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, including the last portion of the race.

With teammate Noah Gragson following Gilliland, it seemed liked Noah would race Todd hard, but not dirtily, to ensure a 1-2 finish for Kyle Busch Motorsports.

Well, that's not what happened.

Here's a look at the FINAL TURN OF THE FINAL LAP, in Sunday's Chevrolet Silverado 250:

Gragson, in the 18, clearly wrecks Gilliland (4), wiping out both trucks and my 15-1 ticket.

In the Tweet above, you can see that Gilliland wanted to fight Gragson following the race. Todd, if you need a lanky 37-year-old father of two with the dad bod to go with it, I got your back!

And yes, it gets worse.

Two years ago in the exact same race, this happened:

And wouldn't you know, I also had a bet on Cole Custer (00) to win that race before he got body-slammed by John Hunter Nemechek (8) coming to the checkered flag.

Not only are both finishes eerily similar, they left my bankroll in the same state as the trucks … wrecked.

Chad Millman, if you're reading this, please accept this post as my doctor's note for calling in sick today.