TIA

Tia Norfleet has been profiled by the Jordan Schultz of the Huffington Post as the lady who might have the honor to become the very first African-American NASCAR driver.
Bobby Norfleet was a professional racer and now his daughter Tia Norfleet, who is currently 24 years of age, is all set to enter the NASCAR racing world and compete with all the other international drivers. The unusual thing about this news is that, female-drivers are very rare seen on the NASCAR tracks, and in addition to that, black-women have never been heard of.
But Norfleet plans to change the usual. Although she has not been qualified for tracks such as Dayton and Talladega, which are the longer-distance tracks, but she has successfully made her place in the shorter tracks and drag-racing.
Norfleet told Schultz that ever since she was 14 years old, she just knew that racing was her passion and it was what she had chosen to do for living.
She also shared her best memory of racing experience. She said that when she was 5 years old, she had a small car in which her father put the batteries so she drove that Corvette until its wheels came off. She added that since that day, she has been extremely
enthusiastic about every motor sport, especially car racing.

Her father was a prominent driver of the ‘90s and it was because of him that the sport gathered popularity in clack community.
According to the tradition of NASCAR drivers and fans, it has been a sport of white, working-class males but now Norfleet is about to change it.

True Grit

Officials from the International Motorsports Industry Show (IMIS) and C&R Racing Inc., announced May 23 that Paul “Ziggy” Harcus was awarded the IMIS / C&R Racing “True Grit” Award.
The $5,000 award is annually given to a veteran INDYCAR team member who has achieved success, overcome adversity, excelled in preparation and has exemplified dedication to the highly skilled trade of building and maintaining IZOD IndyCar Series cars.
“It’s an honor for all of us at IMIS and C&R Racing to present the ‘True Grit’ Award to ‘Ziggy’ Harcus,” said Chris Paulsen, owner of C&R Racing and co-founder of IMIS. “He represents what the ‘True Grit’ Award is all about and throughout the years has been one of the hardest working guys in the sport. At IMIS and C&R Racing, we work for the hardcore racer and ‘Ziggy’ is certainly the definition of that.”
Harcus is in his fourth year with Andretti Autosport after spending 2005-2007 as the director of operations for CART/Champ Car. Prior to his stint with the sanctioning body, Harcus worked with Kelley Racing, PacWest Racing and Galles Racing.

“I’m honored to win the IMIS / C&R Racing ‘True Grit’ Award,” Harcus said. “I’ve known Chris for a long time and he’s a former Indy car mechanic so he knows the long hours and sacrifice that go into the job. I’m humbled that I’ve been selected for this award and it’s certainly nice to be honored by your peers. I want to also thank all the people I work with at Andretti Autosport.”
C&R Racing manufactures and distributes complete cooling systems, chassis and drivetrain components, wind-tunnel models and an assortment of other parts and pieces to INDYCAR and NASCAR teams, as well as several other racing series throughout the world. With more than 20 years of history, C&R Racing is considered one of the most important motorsports businesses in the world.
The third annual IMIS event is scheduled for Dec. 8-10, 2011 at the Indiana Convention Center. The hardcore racing trade show was founded in 2009 by Paulsen, Tom Weisenbach, executive director of the Indiana Motorsports Association (IMA), Jeff Stoops, president of Stoops Freightliner, and two-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Tony Stewart.
Paulsen and C&R established the “True Grit” Award in 1998 for crew members in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400.

New York Yankees

New York Yankees

Ivan Nova said his awful second inning boiled down to two things: bad pitches and bad decisions.

“I don’t want to have innings like that,” he said.

Joe Girardi would probably second that thought. So would Larry Rothschild.

The second inning was a disaster for the young right-hander.

It started when Nova allowed back-to-back singles to Jason Bay and Fernando Martinez.Both runners advanced on a Justin Turner groundout.

Bay then scored on a Willie Harris single up the middle. Martinez followed him home onRonny Paulino’s groundout to Nova.

Jason Pridie topped things off with an RBI single to right.

In all, Nova allowed three runs on four hits (all singles).

To his credit, the 24-year-old settled down after that, scattering seven hits in his final 4 2/3 innings of work. He gave up just one extra-base hit all afternoon.

“I like that I fought,” he said.

Nova was pulled after allowing a two-out double to Carlos Beltran in the seventh. RelieverLuis Ayala came on to retire Jason Bay.

Ayala earned the win after the Yankees exploded for eight runs in the seventh.

Sunday’s outing was the third no-decision for Nova, who set a career-high in hits (11) and pitches (110). It also marked the sixth time in nine starts that he’s allowed six runs or fewer.

Afterward, he said that he appreciated Larry Rothschild and Joe Girardi sticking with him through the tumultuous second.

“I like the confidence they showed in me,” he said.

Oscar De La Hoya

Oscar De La Hoya may have 10 boxing world titles under his belt, as well as an Olympic gold medal from the 1992 Barcelona games, but the pugilistic "Golden Boy" is not afraid to admit to weakness outside of the ring. TMZ has learnedthat De La Hoya, 38, recently checked into a California rehab facility, reportedly to receive treament for problems with substance abuse.
In a statement released to the site, the boxing champ says: "After doing an honest evaluation of myself, I recognize that there are certain issues that I need to work on. Like everyone, I have my flaws, and I do not want to be one of those people that is afraid to admit and address those flaws. Throughout my career and my life, I have always met all challenges head-on, and this is no different. I am confident that with the support of my family and friends, I will become a stronger, healthier person."

De La Hoya watchers may have noticed that his Twitter feed has gotten unusually introspective recently, perhaps evidence that the work he is doing in rehab is paying off. On May 20, he tweeted, "Stop finding excuses not to live. life is controlled by what you make of it and not of what it makes of you." Later that same day, he wrote, "Take a deep breath and let out all that anger that makes you hate. it really is going to be o.k."
Today, he tweeted, "I'm sincerely humbled by the support I've been receiving and promise you that I will knock out this disease I have."
De La Hoya's boxing opponents know all too well about his ferocity, and how hard he fights. That same fierce dedication should serve him well in trying to K.O. his problems. We wish him the best of luck.

Too Big To Fail

In his doping confessional to CBS's 60 Minutes, Tyler Hamilton not only tells of witnessing teammate Lance Armstrong's use of the banned blood-boosting agent EPO when they rode together on the U.S. Postal Service team from 1995 to 2001, but he also delivers a blow to Armstrong's longtime defense against such allegations: "Never a failed test," Armstrong tweeted in response to Hamilton's remarks. "I rest my case."
Hamilton paints a picture of a testing cover-up at the 2001 Tour de Suisse, telling CBS that Armstrong told him that he failed a drug test there. The UCI, cycling's governing body, has denied there was any such cover-up, but another former teammate, Floyd Landis, made a similar allegation last year in letters to USA Cycling as federal officials began investigating whether Armstrong was involved in a doping operation while the team was receiving sponsorship money from the Postal Service. Armstrong has repeatedly denied ever taking a performance-enhancing drug, much less testing positive for one. But if the Tour de Suisse accusations prove true, it would underscore what many in cycling have asked for two decades: Was Armstrong too big to fail?
In 1999, while Armstrong was on his way to his first Tour victory after beating cancer, a French newspaper received a tip that Armstrong had tested positive for a corticosteroid and had no therapeutic use exemption (TUE) on his medical form. Armstrong, who was riding for the Postal team, had just said in a press conference that he did not have any prescriptions for banned products. When the team discovered that the newspaper had received the tip, panic hit Armstrong and his inner-circle, according to Emma O'Reilly, a soigneur from Ireland who worked with the team and specifically with Armstrong. She was in the hotel room after the 15th Tour stage when, she says, Armstrong and team officials devised a plan.
"They agreed to backdate a medical prescription," O'Reilly tells SI. "They'd gotten a heads up that [Armstrong's] steroid count was high and decided they would actually do a backdated prescription and pretend it was something for saddle sores."

In violation of its own protocol requiring a TUE for use of such a drug, officials from the UCI announced that Armstrong had used a corticosteroid for his skin and his positive result was excused. O'Reilly also told SI that, just before the start of the '99 Tour, Armstrong asked her to use some of her cosmetics to cover up injection marks on his arm, though O'Reilly does not know what substance Armstrong had injected. O'Reilly made these same allegations in a 2004 book about Armstrong, published only in French, called L.A. Confidentiel. Armstrong subsequently filed a libel suit against O'Reilly, the book's authors and its publisher. He also sued The Sunday Times of London for reprinting the allegations in a review of the book. (Armstrong settled The Times case for an apology and recovery of his legal costs, and dropped the others.)
As early as 1993, Armstrong's testing data as a member of Team USA was aberrational. As SI reported in January, USA Cycling sent a request to the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory in 1999 for past test results -- testosterone-epitestosterone ratios -- for a cyclist identified only by his drug-testing code numbers. A source with knowledge of the request says that the cyclist was Armstrong. The lab responded, detailing the cyclist's test results from 1991 to 1998, with one missing season: 1997, the only year during that span in which Armstrong didn't compete. Three results -- a 9.0-to-1 ratio in 1993, a 7.6-to-1 in 1994 and 6.5-to-1 in 1996 -- were abnormally high. Most people have a ratio of 1-to-1. Before 2005, any ratio above 6.0-to-1 was considered abnormally high and evidence of doping; in 2005 that ratio was lowered to 4.0-to-1. But the high ratios had not led to sanctions. The lab wrote that it had been unsuccessful in attempting to confirm two of the abnormal results, and the third was not mentioned. All of the tests were reported as negative. According to sources familiar with the federal investigation, the government has obtained a copy of the T/E ratio letter first reported by SI.
In August 2005, Armstrong watched his 1999 Tour de France title fall under scrutiny again when the French sports dailyL'Equipe reported that his urine sample from the race, retested years later for research purposes not for sanctioning, revealed the presence of EPO. Armstrong went public and assailed the French lab for its sloppiness. Months later, Dutch lawyer Emile Vrijman, who was hired by the UCI to lead an investigation into the French lab, supported Armstrong's claim of lax record-keeping at the lab in a 132-page report. In his interview with 60 Minutes, Hamilton says Armstrong used EPO during his 1999 Tour de France victory. SI previously reported that, following the L'Equipe report, a lawyer for Armstrong was granted a private meeting with EPO experts at the UCLA Olympic lab to discuss drug-testing protocols. 60 Minutes reported that Armstrong and Postal team director Johan Bruyneel met with the director of the lab responsible for his Tour de Suisse tests.
As SI reported previously, allegations by teammates that Armstrong used EPO go back even before his first Tour win. Stephen Swart, Armstrong's teammate on the 1995 Motorola team told SI that he was on a training ride with Armstrong after a race in Italy in March 1995 when Armstrong, disappointed with the team's results, suggested the riders start taking EPO. "He was the instigator," says Swart, who admitted to using EPO after that conversation with Armstrong. "It was his words that pushed us toward doing it. It was his advice, his discussions."

Ray Lewis

Call your home security company. There might not be an NFL season.
Lock up the kids.
There might not be an NFL season.
Hide the money. Put the jewels in the safe-deposit box. Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis thinks lawlessness is on the way. Get your six-shooter cleaned. The Wild, Wild West is coming.
I've heard some dumb comments by NFL players in the past, but when Lewis told ESPN's Sal Paolantonio that crime would go up if the NFL doesn't play this season, it had to rank up there with some of the worst.
If Lewis had said there might be more arrests of players without football, we'd believe him.
But more fan arrests? More crime?
Where can I get an assault rifle to make sure I am safe?
I took what Lewis said to some players and coaches here Monday for the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund Celebrity Golf Tournament. On the pristine grounds of TPC Sawgrass, where I witnessed many a ball being hit into the water on the famed No. 17 hole, I wanted to know if NFL people thought Lewis was as off-base as I did.
Most did, but some weren't so sure.
"It's a little exaggerated," Giants defensive end Mathias Kiwanukasaid. "It's not too far-fetched to think not having an institution like the NFL to take up time during the day could do something. There is going to be some negative consequences from a social aspect."
"I don't know if he was as serious as the media made it out to be," Tampa Bay offensive tackle Jeremy Truebloodsaid. "But I guess it's a possibility. What else are people going to do on Sunday?"
Go to the beach? Watch a movie? Yard work? Cut their toenails?
Last time I checked those are all better options than, say, robbing a bank or stealing your neighbor's stereo.
Look, we love the NFL. It is a way of life for a lot of us. But to think without it we'd become a society of criminals is absurd.
"I wouldn't go that strong to say that crime is going to increase," Bucs receiver Michael Clayton said. "That's a little too much."
Some players simply laughed at the notion that crime rates would go up.
"The crime rate will go up if there is no football?" asked Jacksonville Jaguars special-teams ace Montell Owens. "He said that? I didn't hear that. I haven't really given that much thought. I'm sure they'll [the fans] find something else to do."
If Lewis truly believes that, shouldn't he have facts showing that crime numbers increase when there are no NFL games from February to July? Is there data to back that up?

"I don't know how he [Lewis] can make that kind of determination without having a lot more facts," Kiwanuka said.
I don't either. But just in case, I'm going to take Owens up on his offer.
"You live in Jacksonville, right?" he said. "I'll protect you."
Whew! Now I don't have to get the brass knuckles and take martial arts classes.
But you better do something to be ready for the lawlessness.
Ray Lewis said it's coming. And isn't he a top sociologist and not just the best middle linebacker ever?

Ryan Giggs Scandal

Their affair began, perhaps inevitably, at a London club one night last September.
‘We hit it off straight away because we had so much in common,’ gushed Imogen Thomas in a breathless interview with a Sunday tabloid a little over a month ago.
It was a ‘kiss and tell’ account – with a twist, of course.
The married football star lover who she claims took her back to his hotel, called her the following day to check she had arrived home safely, and subsequently pursued her with a stream of flirty texts, was not named in the expose spread over two salacious pages.
By then, the ‘football star’ in question had already won a gagging order to stop details of their seven-month liaison becoming public. With good reason, it turns out.
For we now know that the man with whom she shared a bed – often, according to her, on the night before matches – was none other than Ryan Giggs, the (married) Manchester United legend, former BBC Sports Personality of the Year, one of the few Premier League players with a  reputation to protect; the antithesis, supposedly, of such ‘Red Top’ favourites as John Terry, Ashley Cole, Wayne Rooney and too many others to mention.
Giggs, a father of two, was supposed to be different. Indeed, the Giggs brand – worth £24million in sponsorships – was underpinned by his ‘clean cut, family man’ image.
This was the man who loved to parade his children at football matches. He has been the model professional. He joined Manchester United as a boy, making his first team debut at 17. He has won a record 12 Premier League titles – with the same club – making him Britain’s most successful footballer.
‘Nothing could have prepared me for the limelight I was thrust into at 17,’ he once said. ‘I was in newspapers, magazines, on TV, and everyone in the street knew me. It was strange for me and I dealt with it by trying not to create a fuss. I have just tried to keep it that way ever since…football is my bread and butter. It has to, and always will, come first.’
But his life on the pitch, it now emerges, was at odds with his private life. His decision to obtain an injunction has cost in the region of at least £150,000 – not an insignificant sum even for a  multi-millionaire footballer.
He is alleged to have recognised Miss Thomas as the pneumatic contestant from Big Brother as soon as they met. But Miss Thomas was much more than that.
She had posed topless for lads’ magazines, recorded a sex tape with a previous DJ boyfriend which leaked on to the internet, and had already dated Tottenham striker Jermain Defoe and comedian Russell Brand; a track record which only adds to Giggs’s embarrassment and personal humiliation.
Should we be really surprised though? Apart from anything else, his father, ex-rugby league star Danny Wilson, was a womaniser who split up from Ryan’s mother when he was still a boy; his father’s career was curtailed by heavy drinking and crime, including a six-month jail stretch for attacking a police officer.
The young Ryan disowned him and adopted his mother’s surname. But might he have inherited at least one of his father’s character flaws?
The current scandal began to unfold on April 14 when the Sun newspaper published an article under the headline: ‘Footie Star’s Affair with Big Bro Imogen.’
The first paragraph read: ‘A Premier League star last night gagged The Sun after we found him romping with busty Big Brother babe Imogen Thomas behind his wife’s back.’
Who could have guessed then that the article would have such far reaching consequences and provoke one of the biggest communal acts of civil disobedience in modern times?
The following morning, the Sun reported how she was struggling to cope after being exposed as the ‘mistress of a married footballer hiding behind a court gagging order’. She was spotted near her London home weeping before holding her head in her hands and crumpling to the pavement.
One friend of brunette Miss Thomas, 28, was quoted as saying: ‘He [Giggs] told her she was the love of his life. She said she was in love with him and he was in love with her. It wasn’t purely built on sex. She thought it went much deeper. Imogen was lovestruck.’ 
Imogen Thomas was many things, but she was certainly no victim.
At a subsequent hearing in the High Court in London, the judge who granted the injunction gave his reasons for doing so.
It was claimed Miss Thomas was blackmailing Giggs.

According to the footballer’s statement he and Miss Thomas ‘met four times between September and December last year’.
She then contacted him by text in March, which led him to conclude she was thinking of selling her story.
She allegedly told him ‘she wanted’, or ‘needed’, a payment from him of £50,000. Giggs agreed to meet her in a hotel where he was staying last month. There, he claimed he gave her a signed football shirt, but said he was not prepared to give her £50,000. She asked to see him again shortly afterwards, to which ‘he agreed with reluctance’ and provided her with some football tickets.
Although the position was ‘by no means clear’, the judge said the evidence ‘appeared to suggest’ Miss Thomas had arranged the two hotel meetings ‘in collaboration with photographers and/or journalists’.
Whatever the truth, Miss Thomas eventually sold her story through Max Clifford. Her ‘edited’ version appeared in the Sunday Mirror on April 17. There were more revelations – giving a very different account of events, of course.
‘He’s not like other footballers,’ she said in the interview. ‘He seemed very decent and private with good morals, and I fell for that.’
She claimed she had only told her mother, Janette and sister Alana about the relationship. Giggs – or the ‘married football star’ as he was continually referred to – had apparently kept their secret from everyone including close friends, and his agent. Miss Thomas said they feared they may have been found out after she suspected someone was following her.
Their ‘worst fears were confirmed’ when a friend called Miss Thomas to say reporters had been asking after her at her flat in North-West London. But from then on, Miss Thomas only heard from Giggs through his lawyers. She would later appear on ITV’s This Morning to complain about the injunction.
A few days later, on May 8, the identity of Miss Thomas’s ‘lover’ was revealed on Twitter. At the height of the campaign, Giggs’s name was being mentioned at the rate of 160 times a minute.
Then, last week, Giggs’s lawyers hit back by launching a ground-breaking legal action against Twitter to force the social messaging site to reveal the names of those who had broken the injunction. He was fighting a losing battle.
At the weekend, a newspaper in Scotland published a photograph of Giggs and football fans mockingly chanted his name at a match with a worldwide audience. The game was finally up yesterday when  MP John Hemming used Parliamentary privilege to name him.

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong’s RadioShack team may have just cemented an impressive win in the Tour of California on Sunday, but the retired Tour de France champion suffered what can only be described as a devastating moral defeat as one-time teammate Tyler Hamilton described well-detailed doping procedures by Armstrong and his team during an hour-long feature on 60 Minutes.
In the much-anticipated broadcast, Hamilton describes with precision numerous doping encounters between himself and Armstrong when the two rode together on the US Postal Service team between 1999-2001. And although some will discard Hamilton’s account, since he has twice tested positive himself for performance enhancing drugs, the detail of his accounts promise to be problematic for the seven-time Tour winner.
What promises to be even more problematic for the Texan is that 60 Minutes does not base it claims just on Tyler Hamilton, but on other teammates like Frankie Andreu and George Hincapie, the only rider to ride with Armstrong in all seven of his Tour de France victories and a rider that Armstrong claimed was “like a brother.” Though Hincapie's account comes from an unreported source, and Hincapie denies talking with 60 Minutes, according to the show, Hincapie also testified that “he and Armstrong supplied each other with EPO and discussed having used testosterone for upcoming races.”
Hamilton’s accounts, however, were the most detailed. Choosing to speak with 60 Minutes after testifying in front of a Grand Jury regarding doping in cycling, Hamilton maintains that he is simply repeating much of his testimony.
In the program, the 40-year-old Hamilton appeared gaunt and worn compared to the days when he was one of racing’s top pros. But while he often appeared apologetic on Sunday, Hamilton held back little, if anything, of his knowledge and experience regarding doping in cycling, and more specifically, doping and Lance Armstrong.
Hamilton maintained that Armstrong sent him EPO via Fed Ex or DHL and that he saw Armstrong blood doping. He also claimed that Armstrong had a key role in the wide-spread doping that existed on the U.S. Postal Team; a nuance that could be vital in the federal investigation as it describes Armstrong as a perpetrator rather than simply a participant. In one anecdote, Hamilton even described how Armstrong dropped small doses of Andriol (a liquid form of testosterone) into Hamilton’s mouth.
“The team management encouraged doping,” Hamilton stated. “Lance was obviously the biggest rider on the team. He helped to call the shots. He obviously doped himself, like everybody else, he was part of the culture of the sport.”
In what promises to be problematic for Armstrong as well as the International Cycling Union (UCI), Hamilton confirms reports by Floyd Landis, another former teammate and convicted doper, that Armstrong actually did fail a doping test in the 2001 Tour of Switzerland but that the test was covered over.
60 Minutes claims to have obtained a letter from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to the Swiss lab that conducted the test. The letter reveals that they found the initial Armstrong sample to be “suspicious” and “consistent with EPO use.”
“I know he (Armstrong) had a positive test,” Hamilton says of the 2001 Tour of Switzerland. “He was so relaxed about it . . . Lance’s people, and I believe that people from the governing body of the sport (UCI), figured out a way for it to go away. I was told this by Lance.”

According to 60 Minutes, Armstrong and his team director Johan Bruyneel met with the director in the Lausanne laboratory, Martial Saugy. Later, on two separate occasions, Armstrong made donations to the UCI anti-doping fund totaling $125,000, something current WADA president David Howman describes as “totally inappopriate.”
Today in a press release, the Swiss labs still refutes any positive test.
Hamilton also revealed doping practices between Armstrong and the now-infamous Italian trainer and doctor, Michele Ferrari. Ferrari has been banned from the sport by Italian authorities and Armstrong claims to have broken all ties with him in 2004. But the Federal investigation allegedly is examining personal as well as financial ties between Armstrong and Ferrari that continued up until 2010.
“I can’t say that I ever saw Michele Ferrari give Lance Armstrong performance-enhancing drugs, but I do know for a fact that they talked about performance-enhancing drugs and how to take it, when, who, why,” Hamilton states. “Yes I heard it.”
Hamilton of course knows that criticism from Armstrong will be swift, and if fact it already began. “I’m telling the truth. I’m telling the truth,” he says directly. “I’m sure he’ll come out with accusations. To Lance I feel bad that I had to go here and do this but a the end of the day I think the sport is going to be better off for it.”
Indeed Hamilton has been denounced as “not credible” onwww.facts4lance.com, an web site run by Armstrong spokeperson Mark Fabiani. But while the site questions the credibility of Hamilton and Landis, both who failed doping tests, as well as Andreu, who admitted to doping himself while on Armstrong’s team, it can say little about Hincapie, who after 15 Tour de Frances has never been involved in a doping scandal.
Some fans will criticize Hamilton, like Landis or Andreu. Some will state that current testimony shows only proof of perjury in previous doping cases. And some will recognize that some claims may even be valid. But they overlook one very big point. Neither Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis, Frankie Andreu, or George Hincapie are hardened criminals.
Quite the opposite, they are simply professional cyclists that have attempted to race their bicycles as best they knew how. But when faced with testifying in a case that goes far beyond doping in cycling — one that also entails fraud and conspiracy — they simply do not want to perjure themselves in front of a Grand Jury because they know anything but the truth would mean jail time.

Danica Patrick

The tough and expedited schooling Danica Patrick has undergone in NASCAR may easily give her the advantage she needs for the Indy 500.
NASCAR may be the new pinnacle of motorsports, with drivers coming over from Formula One, open-wheel and other series.
For Patrick, there is one goal she wants to achieve before plotting her future racing course, and that is to win the Indianapolis 500.
The sporadic appearances the GoDaddy.com driver makes in the NASCAR Nationwide Series have shown steady improvement. Her last appearance was at Bristol Motor Speedway on March 19, and her next race will be June 4 at Chicagoland Speedway.
Patrick has been forced to learn how to control a heavy stock car in close packs of cars. She needed to learn a new lingo regarding car set up, which has more variables than an Indy style car.
With IndyCar racing, there is a lot of computer control involved with the cars and downforce is more critical to good performance especially on oval tracks.
It is somewhat easier for a driver to handle the high horsepower open-wheel cars with ground effects that tend to glue themselves to the track. The heavy, bulky stock cars that are slower and more subject to changes are tougher to deal with.
During NASCAR Media Day at Daytona International Speedway this past February, Patrick commented on the stock cars. She said, "The cars are very finicky."
Driving stock cars in the second tier of NASCAR has humbled Patrick, but by the same token, she has learned quickly and gained confidence in herself which should transfer to the IndyCar series.
Aggressiveness in close quarters is mandatory in NASCAR. Though there is no fender banging or pushing with the open-wheel cars, the tendency to be more daring with her Andretti Autosports car has got to be greater than it was prior to driving stock cars.

Obviously, with the difference in the two types of cars, the way they handle on the various tracks can hardly be compared. The one good thing about the two series is that they run on many of the same tracks which should benefit Patrick.
NASCAR builds toughness in a driver. It takes fortitude to drive through smoke and crashing cars with the hope you can guide the car out the other side unscathed.
Patrick's learning curve is yielding faster results than has been the case with some other drivers who have attempted to move from open-wheel to fendered cars.
A race with 43 cars instills a sense of urgency in the drivers to get to the front quickly and the importance of track position is more critical in NASCAR. These two factors should relate to how fast she can take her open-wheel car to the front.
The qualities of a good race car driver include endurance, understanding the line to drive, what makes a car handle for the long run, feedback and being able to adapt to the changes the car makes.
Those qualities and more are important in all motorsports, but building endurance in the NASCAR series may benefit Patrick in her IndyCar racing.
Patrick has been running the first few races of the Izod IndyCar Series without interruption of NASCAR prior to going into the busy month of May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which culminates at the end of the month with the Indy 500.
This may be Patrick's last chance to realize her dream of winning the Indianapolis 500 if she does make the move to NASCAR full-time in 2012.
There is little doubt the experience she has gained racing in the NASCAR Nationwide Series can only be advantageous to her with the open-wheel series.
The best of luck to Danica in the Indy 500.

Lacrosse

The play is called “Stag,” and it landed Maryland one step closer to its first national lacrosse title since 1975.
Senior Grant Catalino scored on a 10-yard shot with 32 seconds left in sudden-death overtime as the unseeded Terrapins defeated top-seeded Syracuse, 6-5, in an NCAA tournament quarterfinal before 14,122 at Gillette Stadium.
With the victory, Maryland (12-4) advanced to face defending national champion Duke (14-5) — which defeated Notre Dame, 7-5, on Sunday — in an NCAA semifinal next Saturday at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. Virginia’s Cavaliers are also in the Final Four after their quarterfinal victory over Cornell on Saturday.
The winning goal came on a play that first-year Coach John Tillman installed this week to take advantage of Catalino, one of the most dangerous outside shooters in the game. The play calls for the ball to go behind the goal. In front of the goal, two players set a screen for Catalino.
Maryland ran the play four times on Sunday against the Orange (15-2). Late in the first half, Syracuse overplayed Catalino and senior Scott LaRue slipped free unnoticed and scored to tie the game at 2.
Three times, Catalino shot the ball. Facing him was senior goalie John Galloway, who owns the NCAA record for most victories by a goalie (59). Two victories came in NCAA championship games played in Gillette Stadium, in 2008 and 2009.
The first two times Catalino shot, the ball went wide and was saved. The third ended Galloway’s college career. As the ball went into a top corner of the net, Maryland players raced onto the field and jumped on Catalino. On the sideline, defensive coordinator Kevin Warne tackled Tillman and the two rolled joyfully on the ground.
“When I came around the double-seal, I was not thinking anything but do what I was told,” Catalino said. “In overtime, sometimes you don’t put as much thought. You go with what comes in your head.”
Said Galloway: “They held the ball for over two minutes in overtime looking for the right look. Unfortunately they found it and I wasn’t there to make the save.”
There was a long list of standouts for Maryland. Sophomore Curtis Holmes won 11 of 14 faceoffs despite going against all four Orange faceoff specialists. His work helped Maryland keep possession for more than 40 of the game’s 63-plus minutes.
Time of possession was important because Syracuse’s defense was so stout. Despite facing one of the toughest schedules in the nation, the Orange was giving up less than seven goals per game. Maryland struggled to get anything going on offense. Of the team’s 23 possessions, 11 lasted 1:55 or longer.
In the meantime, defensemen Max Schmidt, Brett Schmidt and Ryder Bohlander held the Orange attackmen to one goal, one assist and four shots.
Syracuse entered the game unbeaten in quarterfinals since 1981, a 25-game win streak. Coach John Desko had a 28-6 record in the NCAA tournament.
Desko called a timeout with 1:44 left and his team trailing 5-4. The score was tied 39 seconds later after senior Jovan Miller ran down the left side of the offensive box and scored on a high shot.
Syracuse won the ensuing faceoff and Desko called his final timeout. Again, Miller raced down the left of the offensive box. He again shot high. This time, with 16 seconds left, redshirt freshman goalie Niko Amato made the save.
Syracuse had one chance in overtime. Junior midfielder Kevin Drew took a shot on a four-on-three fast break from roughly the same part of the field where Miller had scored to tie the game. Drew also shot high — too high, and the ball went over the cage. Amato was closest when it went out of bounds, giving possession to Maryland.
“He had a certain look in his eye,” Amato said of Drew. “I just tried to stand my ground because there was a lot of green between me and him.”

The victory continued an unlikely run for the unseeded Terrapins. Despite winning the ACC tournament, Maryland was given a road game in the first round against conference foe North Carolina, then drew the most successful postseason program in the sport.
“Instead of seeing [the draw] as a negative,” Tillman said, “they did an awesome job of saying, ‘If we’re going to go, this is going to be a hard road, but we’re used to that.’ ”


l  DUKE 7, NOTRE DAME 5: The defending NCAA champion Blue Devils scored three times in the fourth quarter to beat the Fighting Irish in the second quarterfinal in Foxborough, Mass.
Fifth-seeded Duke, which will meet Maryland in the semifinals, made next weekend’s Final Four a three-quarters ACC event. No. 7 seed Virginia and sixth-seeded Denver will meet in the other semifinal.
Duke and Notre Dame were tied at 4 after three quarters, but Jordan Wolf, Tucker Virtue and Robert Rotantz scored for the Blue Devils in the final period.
Westy Hopkins had three goals for fourth-seeded Notre Dame (11-3).

Roy Jones Jr

Any boxing commission that issues a license to fight for Roy Jones Jr. in the future will have completely ignored its obligations.  One of the primary obligations of the boxing commissions is to ensure that noone is allowed in the ring who is a danger to himself by being there.  Roy Jones should never be given another license, for his own good.  It shouldn't be allowed to happen, though, no doubt, it will.
Roy Jones was the P4P king for years and fought with heart and skill to dominate his competition.  Those days are over.  They've been over for at least 6-7 years.  At this point, he risks his health and life every time he steps into the ring.
Yes, boxing is a brutal sport and every fighter takes a certain amount of risk to health and life when he agrees to box.  There is a difference, though, between reasonable and unreasonable risk.  Roy Jones has crossed that line.
If you haven't watched the knockout administered to Jones by Lebedev, you are probably better off.  Jones wasn't just knocked out, he was knocked unconscious.  It took a significant amount of time before his corner was even able to get him up on a stool, let alone standing again.
Even after the horrific loss to Lebedev, which wasn't a fluke as Jones is 5-7 in his last 12 fights and has been knocked out 4 times in that span, Jones is apparently considering continuing to fight.  He shouldn't be allowed to make that choice.

Roy Jones' skills have deteriorated  to the point that he can no longer effectively protect himself throughout a 10 round fight.  It doesn't matter that he made it to the 10th round - what matters is what happened in that 10th round.
Jones was a scintillating champion but if he is allowed to continue to fight, he is going to end up a cautionary tale. If Jones refuses to see reality himself, it is incumbent on every boxing commission to refuse to allow Jones to continue on a course that could end up with him permanently injured or dead.

Formula One

Race could signal return to normalcy, but Bahraini rights activists aim to block it after violent crackdown on reform-seeking protesters.Having quashed Shi’ite-led protests and preparing to lift martial law in June, Bahrain is pushing full steam ahead to reschedule Formula One auto racing as a high-profile demonstration that life is back to normal. But the human rights violations it wracked up cracking down on unrest may jeopardize the plan.

“If it is up to us, we are ready,” says Zayed Rashed Al-Zayani, chairman of the Bahrain International Circuit. “We are happy to have it. We are ready to host it. But unfortunately it’s not our decision alone.”
As mass protests calling for political reform paralyzed the country in March, Bahrain cancelled the high-profile auto race.  But with the aid of troops from Saudi Arabia and its other Gulf neighbors, Bahrain quashed the demonstrations led by the country’s marginalized Shi’ite majority and imposed martial law

The crackdown continues, with the government accused of destroying Shi’ite mosques, harassing doctors and journalists, and sentencing protesters to death for allegedly killing two policemen by running them over with cars during the riots. Yet as order of a kind was restored, the authorities say they will lift the state of emergency on June 1, even as Saudi troops remain.

“Things are calm now, life is back to normal. We are in a position to have international events once again,” Al-Zayani told Autosport magazine.

When the premier Formula One race was first hosted by Bahrain in 2004, it put the Middle Eastern country strongly on the map of auto racing. Regarded as the world’s highest class of motor sport, more than half a billion people tuned into Formula One races last year making it a huge sporting event across the globe. The Bahraini Grand Prix was to have opened the season. Now the country is hoping to salvage it by holding the event in late October.

“For the Bahraini government, it would have been very important to keep the focus on Bahrain, not only from a motor sport perspective, but from a tourism point of view. This is why it is very important for the Bahrainis to have the race,” Mohamed Sheta, editor of Auto Arabia Media Group, the largest motorsport media group in the Middle East, told The Media Line. 

The general assembly of International Automobile Federation (FIA) is set to meet on June 3 and decide whether Bahrain can host a Formula One event this year.

Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One’s chief executive officer, was quoted by the BBC earlier this month as saying Bahrain could still be slotted into this year’s race calendar in October or November.

“We are having a look at it. Everything is possible,” Ecclestone said. “I'm not sure at the moment what I'm going to do. Everything's up in the air.”

Pro-democracy activists have written an open letter to Ecclestone urging him not to reschedule the Bahrain Grand Prix until the government ends its crackdown. 

“We are asking you to consider the challenges to organize what should be a happy sporting event in the middle of a country under siege and martial law, surrounded by tanks and military forces,” a group calling itself “The Youth of Feb. 14 Revolution” says on its Facebook site.

“We're asking you reconsider hosting Grand Prix of Bahrain until basic human rights and freedoms are restored. The fact that organizing a motorsport festival in the middle of a despotic crackdown on the population, wouldn't be well understood and accepted worldwide.”

Meanwhile, the organizers of the Grand Prix in Bahrain launched a national campaign over the weekend to get motor sport enthusiasts to sign a book in support of bringing the races back to the country. It hopes to receive many more signatures when it is brought to a loyalty festival opening on Monday.

Bahrain was the only Arab country to host a Formula One World Championship (FOM) race until 2009, when Abu Dhabisucceeded in bringing the event to the United Arab Emirates. Another Gulf emirate, Qatar, too, says it wants to host the Formula One as part of a strategy to draw more sports to the emirate. That would complement its successful bid to host football’s World Cup in 2022, currently under question over bribery charges.

“They are very engaged in attracting as many motor sports and events as possible,” Sheta of Auto Arabia says.

Sheta says hosting Formula One races was as much a financial decision as it was one based on national pride.

“For the country it is something of national pride, but for the car companies and the racing teams and the FOM and Bernie Ecclestone it is a matter of marketing and pure money,” Sheta says. “So the more money you have in a country the more interesting it is for the racing teams and their car companies to go there and the richer a country is the more money they can pay to Bernie Ecclestone to get the race so it is purely a money thing.”

Sheta warns that money notwithstanding, the political turmoil was having a negative impact on the willingness of racing teams to come to the Middle East.

Indeed, Eric Boullier, the head of the Renault team, has expressed hesitation at returning to Bahrain.

“If security is guaranteed, if the foreign ministries in England allow us to travel there, if my guys are happy and if there is a race happening there, we will be happy to race there," Boullier told Reuters.

"But the next question would be in the political context: Do we have to race there? That is another subject. I don't really want to enter into that debate. But the question has to be raised. Does F1 have to go there? It is maybe too early to go there after the dramas."

60 Minutes

Twitter is likely to be abuzz from midnight UK time tonight as cycling fans in the US get to see the much-anticipated season finale of the CBS news magazine show 60 Minutes which levels further allegations of drugs use against Lance Armstrong. Among those tweeting as the report unfolds on screen will members of the Texan’s own defence team, who have aparently set up an account on the social network, @facts4lance, which is also the name of a website dedicated to putting his case.
Tonight’s episode of 60 Minutes – a show that has an average audience of more than 13 million viewers – includes an interview with Tyler Hamilton in which he accuses his former team leader of doping during the 1999 Tour de France and ahead of other races.
Hamilton, who has also belatedly confessed to his own doping, including returning the gold medal he won in the time trial at the 2004 Olympics, will be repeating allegations he previously made while testifying to a federal grand jury in Los Angeles,
As with previous allegations made Floyd Landis, Armstrong’s defence team have attacked Hamilton’s credibility, including pointing out that he long denied his own history of doping and therefore his testimony cannot be relied upon. However, perjuring oneself in front of a grand jury can result in a jail sentence.
Potentially more damaging for the former US Postal Service and Discovery Channel team leader is that according to CBS, George Hincapie, who rode alongside him during each of his seven Tour de France wins, has reportedly told the grand jury that he and Armstrong both took performance enhancing substances.

Hincapie has long been seen as the closest rider to Armstrong, certainly during the seven years in which he dominated the Tour de France, and moreover does not carry the stigma of previous substance abuse attached to Landis or Hamilton.
Currently racing in the Amgen Tour of California for his current BMC Racing team, Hincapie has said only that he hasn’t spoken to 60 Minutes – something previously confirmed by CBS itself.
On the issue of what he may or may not have told the grand jury, Hincapie is silent, but if he has indeed admitted to using performance enhancing substances, there will clearly be potential repercussions for the cyclist himself, let alone those relating to anything he may have said about Armstrong.
As far as we are aware it will not be possible to watch tonight’s programme live from the UK, although it should subsequently be available to watch again on the 60 Minutes website.

Bernard Hopkins vs Jean Pascal

Bernard Hopkins became the oldest fighter to win a major world championship as he claimed the WBC light-heavyweight title after defeating Jean Pascal at the age of 46. Hopkins wrested the WBC, IBO and The Ring magazine titles from his 28-year-old opponent, who was making his fifth defence at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
Hopkins, who has won 52 fights and lost only five in a professional career spanning four decades, is the oldest fighter to take a major world belt, six months older than George Foreman when he took the heavyweight title with a victory over Michael Moorer in 1994.

The Philadelphia boxer weathered an early attack from his Canadian opponent before landing more punches and avoiding many of Pascal's power shots, jabbing intelligently and landing a number of heavy right-hands.
Hopkins also taunted his younger foe, dropping to do press-ups before the seventh round. Despite a late charge from Pascal, Hopkins did enough to win with the judges each having him ahead on points after the 12th round, the cards reading 115-113, 116-112, 115-114.
"I didn't feel like I was 46 tonight, I felt more like 36," Hopkins said. "I can say I'm a great fighter, it was exciting, I think everybody enjoyed themselves."
Pascal admitted his two bouts, the first of which was a draw against Hopkins, had taught him lessons. He said: "Bernard fought a great fight, he's a great champion, he has a great defence and knows a lot of tricks. These two fights will lead me to the next level, I learned a lot from Bernard and his style."
Hopkins will next fight Chad Dawson, who had a unanimous decision win over Adrian Diaconu in an elimination bout.

Bernard Hopkins

The inspiration was the legendary light-heavyweight boxer Archie Moore, who came to Montreal to fight the much-younger Yvon Durelle in 1958.
A natural enough parallel for 46-year-old Bernard Hopkins, a multiple world champion in two different weight classes who was trying to make history in the Bell Centre on Saturday.
And make it he did.
In a carbon copy of his first fight with Jean Pascal, Hopkins weathered the early storm and then took control of the bout as the night wore on, punishing the man 18 years his junior with a relentless onslaught.
Hopkins (52-5-2) is the oldest man to win a world boxing title, and one of the oldest individual athletes to win a world championship.
“I didn't feel like I was 46 tonight, I felt more like 36,” Hopkins said. “I can say I'm a great fighter, it was exciting, I think everybody enjoyed themselves.”
The judges each had Hopkins ahead on points after the 12th round, the cards read 115-113, 116-112, 115-114.
Despite a late charge from WBC title-holder Pascal of Montreal – with a packed Bell Centre standing and his corner furiously urging him on – Hopkins did enough to win.
The result was greeted with boos, but Montreal’s boxing public is sophisticated enough to know, in their heart of hearts, that Pascal didn’t do enough to win And at the end, the bewildered Pascal briefly refused to hand his title belts over.
“Bernard fought a great fight, he’s a great champion . . . he has a great defence and knows a lot of tricks,” a deflated Pascal said after the bout. “These two fights will lead me to the next level, I learned a lot from Bernard and his style.”
Hopkins’ will go down as a performance for the ages, where he out-boxed a younger, fitter man – although in fairness the crafty veteran has taken up permanent residence in Pascal’s head with a relentless psychological barrage.
Against almost any other fighter, Pascal would surely have won for the home town crowd..
Hopkins entered first to a personalized version of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” – complete with sequine-clad back-up singers waiting for him in the ring.
Pascal, the champion, was escorted to the ring by a pair of rappers, and brushed past Hopkins, who was wearing his customary black balaclava, in the centre of the ring.
Pascal then confronted the 46-year-old, opening his black-and-gold robe to reveal a t-shirt that read “Are you willing to take the test?” – a reference to Pascal’s earlier allegations that Hopkins uses performance-enhancing drugs.
Hopkins smirked and gave him a light shove.
For all the tension and atmosphere, neither boxer landed a meaningful in the first round.
The second was more eventful, with Pascal landing a brisk combination and Hopkins counter-punching, late in the round he slipped a lunging Pascal right and landed a couple of quick rights of his own.
In the third, Pascal rocked Hopkins with a solid left hand, but Hopkins soon retaliated with a flurry that hurt the champion.
Pascal had vowed to put Hopkins away in four – and after a sedate opening to the round Hopkins stuck his tongue out at Pascal, which prompted the champion to unleash a furious barrage of shots, none of which did much damage.
But as the round came to a close, Pascal landed a combination that seemed to do some damage.
In the sixth round, Hopkins again taunted the 28-year-old champion by flicking his tongue and by hitting him during clinches and leaning on him – at the bell, Hopkins said something to Pascal and turned away, although it clearly incensed the Montreal figher, who tried to get at the challenger before being shepherded away by the officials.
Before the seventh, Hopkins dropped and did some push-ups to mock Pascal, whose corner had him sitting in his corner until the last possible moment – a tactic they used throughout the fight. Later in the round, Pascal shimmied and danced in front of his opponent, to the crowd’s delight. Later, Pascal briefly found himself on the canvas, but it was ruled a slip.
After several close rounds – Hopkins landed more and better punches throughout – Pascal had two stumbles in the 10th and though both were ruled slips, Hopkins had tagged him with right hands immediately before.
And if Hopkins had been willing to deploy the stalling tactics – leaning, clinching and holding – in the early part of the fight, the champion was the one who started resorting to skullduggery.
In the 11th, Pascal locked Hopkins’ arm and struck him with a series of quick right hooks.
The fight card drew 17,560 fans to the Bell Centre, although the roar they produced as Pascal walked in was as loud as any Montreal Canadiens’ game – an image that was doubtless appreciated by HBO, which broadcast the bout.
Afterward, Hopkins again did some push-ups, and Pascal one-upped him by doing several with one arm.
There was plenty of bad blood to go around in the build-up to the re-match – Hopkins memorably warned Pascal that he might kill him in the ring.
Prior to that, Pascal had accused Hopkins of using performance-enhancing drugs.
And when the two first met on Dec. 18, 2010 in Quebec City, Pascal knocked the 46-year-old legend down twice in the early rounds, but Hopkins rebounded as the night wore on and won the bulk of the final eight rounds.
The performance was impressive enough that one of the judges gave Hopkins the edge on his scorecard – the two others saw the fight as even, and so the result was a controversial majority draw.
The co-main event pitted a pair of former world light-heavyweight title holders vying to be next in line for a title shot, expatriate Romanian boxer Adrian Diaconu, who has made Montreal his home for the past decade, and American southpaw Chad Dawson.
Diaconu’s only two losses as a pro going into the fight came at the hands of Pascal.
The 27-year-old Dawson also lost his one and only fight with Pascal in 2009 – it was stopped in the 11th round because of a cut he sustained from an accidental head-butt.
With the winner of the fight likely to face the winner of Hopkins and Pascal – Dawson staked his claim as the top contender.
In an efficient, economical performance, Dawson dictated much of the fight against his much shorter opponent, and staggered Diaconu on several occasions, notably with a crisp left hand as the fifth round expired. Then he drilled him with another left to the chin in the seventh. By the ninth round, Diaconu’s cheekbones and brow had started to swell and some boos began raining down from impatient fans.
The response from Diaconu was his best flurry of the night, although Dawson merely shook his head as if to signal he hadn’t been hurt.
Diaconu is a tough fighter to close out, and was the busier of the two men even if he wasn’t able to find a way through Dawson’s defence.
The game 32-year-old Diaconu came on in the later rounds and even had Dawson on the carpet in the 11th, although it was a clear slip.
The final round belonged to Diaconu, but it wasn’t enough to stop Dawson from winning a unanimous decision to run his record to 30-1. It was Diaconu’s third loss in 30 professional bouts.
“I know I’d won the fight . . . I wasn’t nervous at all coming to his home town,” Dawson said after the fight.
The Connecticut native said he’s still getting used to working with legendary trainer Emmanuel Steward, who has handled him for the last eight months, vowing that “next time I’ll be 100 per cent better.”
Immediately before the Diaconu-Dawson fight, undefeated heavyweight Oscar Rivas, who boxed for Colombia at the 2008 Olympics but now calls Montreal home, faced the undefeated Zsolt Zathurecky in a six-round bout.
It didn’t last that long.
First, with less than 30 seconds elapsed in the opening round, Rivas put Zathurecky down with an overhand right, straight left combination; then he knocked him down again with a right-hook left-hook combination. Then he finished the fight before the first round bell rang when he hit the big Hungarian with a left hand to the midsection that he followed up with a right hook to the head.
Rivas is now undefeated in six professional fights, Zathurecky is 3-1.
Promising Canadian junior middleweight Mikael Zewski of Trois-Rivieres, Que., who is in the same Golden Boy Productions stable as Hopkins, ran his professional record to 10-0 in a clinical dismantling of Indiana-based boxer Ruben Galvan (27-17-4).
The 22-year-old dominated the first two rounds – despite Galvan waving at him to come forward – and ended the fight at 1:44 of the third round with a devastating left uppercut that caught his opponent cleanly.
“It was a short, quick one, and I think I surprised him,” Zewski said. “I hit him with harder shots during the fight and hurt him, but that one he didn’t expect.”
Fellow junior middleweight Kevin Bizier of Saint-Emile, Que., chalked up an identical result, knocking out Mauro Lucero (46-14-1) a wily veteran from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
The turning point in what had been a fairly even fight came early in the fifth of eight scheduled rounds when Lucero was cut badly over the right eye after an accidental clash of heads. As the round ticked into the final seconds, Bizier (15-0) hit the Mexican with a crushing left-hand, catching him over the liver.

Lucero took a knee and was counted out.
Elieder Alvarez, a Montreal cruiserweight coached by Pascal trainer Marc Ramsey, won a comprehensive decision in his four-round bout against Quebec City journeyman and part-time pro fighter David Whittom, a construction worker whose collection of body art includes a cursive tattoo across his back that reads “Mommy’s Little Boy.”
Earlier in the evening, Montreal-based light-heavyweight Nicholson Poulard (17-3) won a unanimous 10-round decision over Puerto Rican journeyman Frankie Santos (17-10-4).
In the evening’s first bout, super-heavyweight Didier Bence of Laval, Que., defeated 41-year-old Dwayne Story of Moncton, N.B., in a second-round technical knock-out.
It was only Bence’s second professional fight – the 23-year-old former national team boxer once won bronze at the Pan-American Games – and it ran his record to 2-0, both wins by knockout.

Horse Race

Jesus Castanon doesn’t have the high profile of other jockeys like Calvin Borel or Animal Kingdom rider John Velazquez. But on Saturday, his story shone through like no one else’s.
Castanon’s father died of a kidney ailment back in November, so when the jockey and Shackleford captured the Preakness, his mind was immediately away from racing.
“When I came to the wire, he just came to me,” Castanon said. “I know he was up there watching me.”
It was an emotional scene in the moments after the victory as Castanondelivered a message in Spanish to his mother, who was watching back home in Mexico. Asked to translate into English, Castanon choked up.
“Hey mom, this is a very exciting race and I really dedicate this race for you,” he said. “And I know my dad is watching.”
Castanon later said his father was on dialysis but lasted only three years.
But the jockey’s triumph Saturday goes even beyond the touching dedication. This is his first Triple Crown victory — but not surprising to trainer Dale Romans.
“He’s like a critically-acclaimed movie that’s never made it as a big hit for some reason,” Romans said. “Everybody knows he has the talent; he just hasn’t had the opportunity.”
Romans and co-owners Mike Lauffer and Bill Cubbedge gave him that opportunity in the Kentucky Derby and then again in the Preakness. It was actually the first Triple Crown win for all of them — and a testament to not abandoning the plan.
“We’ve all stuck together with this horse,” Lauffer said. “We had a bad race or two, but we stuck with our team and it paid off.”
Sixth-largest crowd

Saturday featured the sixth-largest crowd to ever watch the Preakness at Pimlico: 107,398. The crowd, especially on the infield, was boisterous, and the Maryland Jockey Club was rewarded for its marketing campaign with the crowd.
“Kegasus,” a half-man, half-horse mascot who promotes partying before the race, was a success as this was the first time the crowd was over 100,000 since 1998 — the last time outside alcohol was permitted. Beer specials and musical acts Train and Bruno Mars helped this time.
The amount bet at the track — $76,376,689 — was also the seventh-largest in Preakness history.

Lance Armstrong

After all these years, all these miles and all the suspicion, it's still somewhat astonishing to see the cars on the old Blue Train uncoupling one by one. This may forever be remembered as the week when Lance Armstrong finally lost control of the U.S. Postal Service cycling team that formally disbanded years ago.
One of Armstrong's most prominent support riders from early on in his seven-year reign as Tour de France champion, Tyler Hamilton, admitted to his own doping past and has given the CBS newsmagazine "60 Minutes" an alleged eyewitness account of Armstrong using performance-enhancing drugs that will air on Sunday evening.
The network also reported a potentially even more weighty revelation, saying that George Hincapie, the only man to have been on all of Armstrong's Tour-winning teams, has told federal authorities investigating Armstrong that the two men swapped and discussed the use of banned substances. Hincapie has not confirmed the story and said he never spoke to "60 Minutes."
Armstrong has never strayed from his blanket denial of doping. But taken together with Floyd Landis' year-old detailed confession and allegations, the new material constitutes a far more serious assault on Armstrong's integrity than anything previously unearthed in the 12 years since he became a global superstar. It also represents a total rupture in what were once strong bonds between the ex-teammates, bonds that once would have seemed impossible to break, whether because of camaraderie or common interest.
The supremely efficient Postal teams of Lance Armstrong's heyday ran on schedule -- his schedule. More than any other organization of that era, they were built on the principle of all for one and one for the Tour de France. Other races were tuneups or afterthoughts, and other individual aspirations were footnotes, if they existed at all. Postal riders were self-effacing and loyal to their leader; the Tour was one big buddy movie on two-wheelers.
At least it was made to appear that way. What the world was permitted to see of the team off the road was tightly monitored. Minders sat in on interviews. Journalists sympathetic to the team were enlisted to keep tabs on who was saying what in the press room. Hostile journalists were photographed and blacklisted. The Blue Train was also a gravy train that altered the trajectory of many careers. Woe to anyone who tried to derail it by raising doubts that the team was clean.
Through that filter, Hincapie, Hamilton and Landis were all initially viewed as charming sidekicks defined by the roles they played for Armstrong, and they had to work hard to establish separate identities. But Armstrong's grip on their psyches persisted after they left the team, mainly because his power and influence within cycling continued to grow. When Hamilton and Landis were busted for doping in 2004 and 2006, respectively, neither seriously considered telling the truth about his own history or the toxic culture of the sport that had turned cheating into a rational act and lying into a lifestyle.
Both riders fought their positive tests and didn't rat on anyone, confident they had calculated the odds correctly. "If you point your finger at [Armstrong] and a few other people who run the sport, you're not allowed back in," Landis said Friday.
That construct is crumbling before our eyes now. It took the two former Postal lieutenants who had the least to lose -- having already lost so much -- to bring the heaviest sledgehammers to it thus far. The triggers for their confessions and allegations may seem clear-cut: Landis was angry, and Hamilton was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury hearing evidence in the case. But it would be unfair to oversimplify their stories. Both men have suffered for their hubris and mistakes. There are a lot of decent people in cycling who have been warped by its extremes like plywood in the hot sun.
"I know what these guys are about to go through, and it's a rough road," said Frankie Andreu, who five years ago admitted using performance-enhancing drugs to prepare for the 1999 Tour, the race that marked the start of Armstrong's dominance. "I have a lot of respect for them for telling the truth."
Andreu and his wife, Betsy, were once close friends of Armstrong's, but the relationship soured after they testified in a 2005 arbitration hearing that they had heard him tell doctors he had used performance-enhancing drugs when they visited him in the hospital during his cancer treatment in late 1996.
In comments on Friday to VeloNews.com, Andreu said of Hincapie, "You can't find a nicer guy, a more trustworthy guy, a more respected person in the peloton. Lance has ripped apart, attacked and shredded anybody that's said anything against him. I don't know that that would work against George."
Veteran U.S. rider Michael Creed said he observed "a lot of self-hate" in Hamilton while they were briefly teammates at Rock Racing in 2008, and feels compassion for him now.
"Would it make more sense to lie after you get caught, or now?" Creed asked rhetorically. "What makes more sense? I don't think you're ever married to a lie."
Landis, who torpedoed his own credibility more than once in the process of contesting his doping case and then coming clean, said he hoped people would "look at the big picture and try to make a judgment on everything that was happening. ... Don't look at [Hamilton] and work backwards and say, 'This guy must be telling a lie and there must be a reason.'"

The Hincapie report remains unsourced at the moment, and should be regarded differently unless that changes. If it's true that he outed himself, there could be implications for his career, unless the admissions were to fall outside the eight-year anti-doping statute of limitations or a deal has been struck with authorities. What would be his record-tying 16th Tour start looms little more than a month away, and he has spoken recently of wanting to race one more season.
What ultimately matters is not what any media outlet reports Hincapie testified to, but what Hincapie actually said behind closed doors and how it weaves into the vast, sprawling Armstrong odyssey. By virtue of never having been involved in a doping case, Hincapie has a larger reservoir of public goodwill than Hamilton or Landis, and that could make him a more sympathetic figure. He also might engender more fan disappointment, judging by the comments on his Twitter feed.
Those old Postal teams were disciplined. They rode team time trials with geometric precision and they swarmed to the front of the peloton at the base of major climbs, blowing up the group with a high tempo and making sure one or more helpers were with Armstrong on the way up. They protected him. On the rare occasions that he was isolated, it was a jarring sight. This week, it feels like his escort is dwindling.

Macho Man Randy Savage

The world lost a formidable wrestling superstar of the past when Macho Man Randy Savage died May 20, 2011 at the age of 58.

He was a wrestling superstar, an athlete, an actor, product spokesman, and even a rap star. Macho Man was a lot of things, but for people growing up in the 1980's and watching him as a WWF, and then WCW superstar, he was a memorable part of Saturday mornings while growing up.
Today's Rewind takes a look at three events in Macho Man's life in remembrance of this great athlete.

Preakness 2011

Jockey John Velazquez, trying to win his first Preakness two weeks after taking his first Kentucky Derby, said that if Animal Kingdom runs and reacts the same way Saturday at Pimlico that he did at Churchill Downs, “he'll be very tough.”
“He was so calm, even with all the hoopla and people and everything,” Velazquez said Friday. “He showed no stress. He was really relaxed and really confident in himself.
“He'd never run on the dirt, but he ran like he'd run on the dirt 20 times. He handled everything really well. Every time I asked him to do something, he was there for me. When I held my position, he was there for me. When I pulled him out, he ran. If he does that, he'll be a really, really tough horse to beat.”
Velazquez would be the first jockey to ride Animal Kingdom twice, but he isn't taking anything for granted. After all, Robby Albarado was scheduled to ride the colt in the Derby but was replaced the day before after sustaining facial fractures earlier in the week.
“Let's not say that yet, because I haven't ridden today yet,” Velazquez said with a laugh. He said he'd talked with Albarado in the Pimlico jocks' room Friday.
“Oh, yeah, we have no problem,” said Velazquez, who is giving an undisclosed portion of his Derby earnings to Albarado. “The same way as after the Kentucky Derby, I went to him and talked to him. Listen, he's a trouper. He knows things happen. It happens to me. It happens to all of us. It's just unfortunate it happened to him on Derby Day.”
Velazquez said he reined in his emotions about winning the Derby in deference to Albarado.
“I know he's in the jockeys' room watching,” he said. “Out of respect for him, it was definitely a quiet moment for me. A lot of people said, ‘How come you didn't show any emotions?' I did show emotions. I just didn't celebrate the way everybody else does, because there was another jockey there who was named on the horse and he didn't get to ride him.

“And in a case like him, he was hurt. It wasn't like they took him off the week before the Derby. I mean, you're hurt, you're down and then you get kicked down on the floor. It's not a good feeling. It's not in my nature to celebrate like nothing happened.”
Of course, Velazquez was available to ride only because his own scheduled mount, 2-year-old champion Uncle Mo, was scratched the morning before the Derby. The two years before that he also saw his highly regarded Derby mounts, Eskendereya and Quality Road, drop out in the two weeks before the race.
“It was meant to be, that's the only way you could put,” he said of this year's victory.
Jennie Rees can be reached at (502) 582-4042.

Indy 500

It’s the Greatest Spectacle in Motorsports and in less than two weeks, it celebrates it’s 100th birthday. The Indianapolis 500 is one of the largest and most famous sporting events in the world and PEAK Motor Oil is honored to be part of the event’s rich heritage.

The PEAK Performance Pole Award presented by AutoZone will be presented Saturday upon the completion of Pole Day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to the driver who will eventually lead the field of 33 racers to the green flag Sunday, May 29. Hall-of-fame caliber racers such as Rex Mays, Mario Andretti, AJ Foyt, Johnny Rutherford, Rick Mears, Tony Stewart and, most recently, Helio Castroveves, have started the Indy 500 at P1 and PEAK is proud to be part of that legacy.

"We are extremely excited to present the PEAK Performance Pole Award and PEAK Performance Front Row at the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500" said Jerry Riccioni, Senior Vice President of Automotive Sales for Old World Industries, maker of PEAK products. "This will also be our fourth consecutive year as the official motor oil of the Indianapolis 500. It's a great honor that we can celebrate this milestone at such a significant event for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy Car Series."

Saturday is a special day for fans of the Indianapolis 500 for another reason. Tom Carnegie, the track’s longtime announcer who died in February at age 91, will be honored for the 61 Pole Days where his voice created a sense of drama and excitement. During “Tom Carnegie Day,” the new Public Address stand at IMS will be named in Carnegie’s honor and his unmistakable, booming voice will be heard at various times over the Public Address system. In addition, highlights of Carnegie’s remarkable career will appear on the Speedway video boards.

Carnegie’s incredible baritone coined and developed such iconic phrases as, “AND HEEEEEEE’S ON IT!” “HEEEEEERE’S THE TIME AND SPEED REPORT!” and the classic “AAAAAAND, IT’S A NEEEEEW TRACK RECORD!”

PEAK, also the official motor oil of the IZOD IndyCar Series, will provide frequent updates of both the Pole Day festivities and the Indianapolis 500 itself through its social media outlets, Facebook.com/PEAKAuto and Twitter.com/PEAKAuto.

Gates open at 6 a.m. Saturday with practice beginning at 8. A past pole winners’ Q & A is scheduled for 10 a.m. in the plaza with an autograph session immediately following. Qualifying for the PEAK Performance Pole Award for the 100th Indianapolis 500 is expected to begin around 11 a.m. For more information on the event and for tickets, visit IndianapolisMotorSpeedway.com.

Television coverage of Pole Day kicks off at 10 a.m. EDT on Versus.