Rookie American driver Paul Dana died after crashing in a warmup session for the IRL's season-opening Toyota Indy 300, won by Dan Wheldon on Sunday.
Dana, a former motorsports journalist living his dream, was streaking around Homestead Speedway when he failed to notice another car had spun to a stop, slamming into it at close to 320kph. Two hours after his shattered car came to a rest, the 30-year-old Dana was pronounced dead at a hospital.
"Obviously, this is a very black day for us," team owner Bobby Rahal said. "This is a great tragedy."
PHOTO: AP
Dana believed he had finally received his big break in the months before the IRL IndyCar Series race here. After a string of modest successes rising through racing's ranks, he had secured a ride with the elite Rahal Letterman Racing -- the same team that fields Danica Patrick and Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Rice.
Patrick and Rice did not run on Sunday, but the race went on as planned, with defending Indy 500 and IRL points champion Wheldon beating Helio Castroneves by a nose cone.
If the drivers had any jitters going into the race, it didn't show by the end -- Wheldon and Castroneves carried off a side-by-side, tire-bumping duel in the final laps en route to the thrilling finish.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the Dana family and all of Rahal Letterman racing," said Wheldon, who ran the race with Dana's No. 17 on his side pod. "It's a very, very sad day. I think hopefully we put on a good race."
Dana, who began his career in Formula Fords and worked his way up through the ranks, was known as a strong self promoter. He got his new ride by bringing the Ethanol sponsorship to the Rahal Letterman team over the winter.
Kevin Harvick doesn't like Kurt Busch, and now maybe Matt Kenseth is mad at him, too.
Jeff Gordon was furious with Kenseth, and half the NASCAR field was fuming about something.
Ahh, just another day at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Busch used a brash bump on Kenseth, his friend and former teammate, to race his way into the lead with four laps to go on Sunday and win the Food City 500.
Afterward, Kenseth was none too pleased with the maneuver that gave Busch his fifth win in the past nine Bristol races.
"The only thing I know for sure is that if the roles would have been reversed, I absolutely would not have done that to him," Kenseth said.
But Busch saw it a different way, and couldn't quite figure out what Kenseth was complaining about.
"Maybe I bumped him -- I've been bumped before and have had a win taken away from me," Busch said. "I don't sit there and cry about it. I don't sit there and say `Maybe I am going to wreck him the next week.' If I get bumped by Kenseth the next week, that's cool."
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite