Brian Vickers thought he finally had some good news in qualifying for the Auto Club 500 on Friday to override the controversy of the past week.
The Red Bull Racing driver won the pole for today’s race, barely beating heavily favored Jimmie Johnson. But about an hour after taking the sixth pole of his NASCAR Sprint Cup career with a lap of 295.19kph, Vickers found out his team would have to change the engine in his No. 83 Toyota, sending him to the back of the 43-car field.
He will still be listed as the pole winner, but the youngster will drop out of line when the cars start moving today and fall to the back, while Johnson, whose fast lap was 294.76kph, gets to lead the field to the green flag.
PHOTO: AFP
The pole would have been big for Vickers, especially in the wake of the Daytona 500 controversy that was sparked when Dale Earnhardt Jr and Vickers collided, setting off a 10-car crash.
Vickers had forced Earnhardt below the yellow out-of-bounds line on the Daytona oval and Earnhardt turned back up the banking and hit Vickers, igniting the multicar crash and a whole lot of finger pointing.
Vickers said he and his team would love to put Daytona behind them, going from the pole to lead every lap and win today’s race.
“I think the next challenge is going to be a lot more difficult than the first one,” Vickers said.
Much more so now.
Johnson, who has three wins on the 3.2km Auto Club Speedway oval, was asked how the lack of off-season testing — a ban imposed by NASCAR to save the teams money in the current economic climate — affected Friday’s performance in practice and qualifying.
“I kind of forgot about the fact that we haven’t tested as today got started,” the three-time reigning Cup champion said. “I don’t know, I guess I haven’t put a lot of thought in to it. In some ways it reminded me of kind of the last time we were here. The guys that were fast last time at this track were fast again.”
Four-time NBA all-star DeMarcus Cousins arrived in Taiwan with his family early yesterday to finish his renewed contract with the Taiwan Beer Leopards in the T1 League. Cousins initially played a four-game contract with the Leopards in January. On March 18, the Taoyuan-based team announced that Cousins had renewed his contract. “Hi what’s up Leopard fans, I’m back. I’m excited to be back and can’t wait to join the team,” Cousins said in a video posted on the Leopard’s Facebook page. “Most of all, can’t wait to see you guys, the fans, next weekend. So make sure you come out and support the Beer
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was