Nascar

The NASCAR Sprint Cup race in Southern California a year ago was hampered by rain that caused numerous delays and frustrated fans, drivers and track officials. Now the sport and the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana are about to be tested again, this time by an economic storm -- and a big question is how many stock car racing fans will weather it by showing up.

Two years ago, Russian bobsled federation officials approached the designer of one of the world's fastest bobsleds and offered him, "money, women, money and women" to transfer his loyalties -- and secrets -- from the U.S. team. "I told them, 'It's not going to happen. This stuff isn't for sale,' " says Bob Cuneo, retelling the story while leaning on a bar and laughing. Now 18 years after he partnered with former NASCAR driver Geoff Bodine to produce a world-class winter racing machine, Cuneo hopes the four-man competition will end with the perfect retirement present: the first U.S. gold medal since 1948.

Auto Club Speedway, hoping to boost excitement for the Fontana track's title-contending NASCAR Sprint Cup race this fall, said Wednesday it would shorten the race to 400 miles from 500. The race, which had been called the Pepsi 500, will now be the Pepsi Max 400, reflecting both the shorter distance and a different soft drink marketed by title sponsor Pepsi. Set to run Oct. 10, the race is the fourth of 10 races in NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup late-season championship playoff.

Gillian Zucker gamely picked her way in heels through misshapen shards of steel and clouds of concrete dust in a moonscape of construction debris. It was scarcely a month shy of one of the Fontana track's top annual events, the Labor Day weekend running of NASCAR's Sony HD 500, and it was hard for a visitor to envision the site being finished and cleaned up in time.

Late in 1986, stock car driver Tim Richmond was hospitalized for pneumonia. But, as he soon discovered, that was secondary to a more serious illness: He was diagnosed with AIDS, the acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Richmond, 31 at the time, did not want to quit racing. And he did not. He was named NASCAR's driver of the year for 1986, and planned to continue driving for as long as his strength would last. But it was not AIDS that knocked him out of racing.

Dale Jensen and Brad Yonover knew they would be fighting history when they proposed staging a street race through downtown. After all, a Formula One street race here was such an epic flop that it still makes old-timers shudder with the 15-year-old memory. But the two local real estate and entertainment entrepreneurs thought they could correct the mistakes made on that earlier occasion.

Danica Patrick on Friday rejected skeptics who say she is incapable of switching from driving lighter, aerodynamic Indy cars to the much bulkier and heavier stock cars used on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Patrick, 27, is in the last year of her contract with the IndyCar team Andretti Green Racing and is evaluating options for next season. Patrick last year became the first woman to win a major U.S.-sanctioned open-wheel race when she won the IndyCar race at Motegi, Japan.

Phillip Kennedy is glad he doesn't have to do it. Pete Wright doesn't really have a choice. Wright is the lead mechanic and a co-car chief on the U.S. Army Chevrolet driven by Joe Nemechek. Kennedy, 27, is a body man for MB2 Motorsports, the team that fields cars driven by Nemechek and Scott Riggs. The subject is traveling. "I've got a 5-year-old daughter and a son due in six weeks," Kennedy says. "I don't want to be on the road."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. will join the powerful Hendrick Motorsports team next year in hopes of earning his first Nextel Cup title, but in doing so NASCAR's most popular driver will test the loyalty of his enormous fan base. The move, which Earnhardt and owner Rick Hendrick announced Wednesday, means Earnhardt's new teammates will include four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon -- the bane of many Earnhardt fans.

Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch each has eight wins this season. Jimmie Johnson has six victories and is poised to win his third NASCAR Sprint Cup title. So who does Tony Stewart think is the NASCAR series' driver of the year? David Ragan. David Ragan? Never mind that the 22-year-old Ragan has never won a Cup race. He's Stewart's pick because of how Ragan has matured on the track in the two years since he joined the big leagues of stock car racing.

Jeff Gordon knows he's running out of time to win a fifth NASCAR championship. Gordon, the onetime "Boy Wonder" who captured his four titles in NASCAR's premier series between 1995 and 2001, hasn't won another since the series became the Sprint Cup Series and adopted the "Chase for the Cup" title playoff format in 2004. It hasn't been for lack of trying. Gordon finished second in the point standings in 2007 and third last year, but he's had to watch as Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson won an unprecedented four consecutive championships from 2006 through last season.

Two years ago, Russian bobsled federation officials approached the designer of one of the world's fastest bobsleds and offered him, "money, women, money and women" to transfer his loyalties -- and secrets -- from the U.S. team. "I told them, 'It's not going to happen. This stuff isn't for sale,' " says Bob Cuneo, retelling the story while leaning on a bar and laughing. Now 18 years after he partnered with former NASCAR driver Geoff Bodine to produce a world-class winter racing machine, Cuneo hopes the four-man competition will end with the perfect retirement present: the first U.S. gold medal since 1948.

Auto Club Speedway, hoping to boost excitement for the Fontana track's title-contending NASCAR Sprint Cup race this fall, said Wednesday it would shorten the race to 400 miles from 500. The race, which had been called the Pepsi 500, will now be the Pepsi Max 400, reflecting both the shorter distance and a different soft drink marketed by title sponsor Pepsi. Set to run Oct. 10, the race is the fourth of 10 races in NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup late-season championship playoff.

When Danica Patrick became a rookie sensation in 2005 in what is now the Izod IndyCar Series, she capped the year with a race in Southern California. Five years later, IndyCar's most popular driver might make her NASCAR stock-car racing debut at the same location. Patrick, who recently announced plans to try stock-car racing on a limited basis next year in NASCAR's second-tier Nationwide Series, said Thursday that she plans to enter the Feb. 20 Nationwide race at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.

It's official: Danica Patrick will take on NASCAR's good ol' boys. Patrick, who became one of the most recognizable figures in sports as a driver of Indy-type race cars, announced Tuesday that she will also try her hand at NASCAR stock-car racing next season. Patrick, 27, said she would drive a No. 7 Chevrolet in a "limited number" of races in NASCAR's Nationwide Series -- the second-tier race circuit below its premier Sprint Cup Series -- in a car owned by JR Motorsports, a team co-owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR's most popular driver.

It will take some time for the gravity of what Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 team accomplished at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday to truly sink in for the men who made it happen. But Johnson knows it's big. Johnson, 34, won an unprecedented fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship. He joined Jeff Gordon, Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt as the only drivers to win at least four titles and broke a tie with Cale Yarborough, who won three straight championships.

Kyle Busch's frustrating season in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series was evident for all to see in Texas when Busch suddenly was nowhere to be seen. After dominating the race last week at Texas Motor Speedway, Busch's Toyota ran out of fuel with only two laps left, leaving him with an 11th-place finish instead of a trip to Victory Lane. Busch fled the garage without comment, leaving his new crew chief, Dave Rogers, to face the television cameras and explain the fuel snafu to reporters.

Jimmie Johnson's drive to history took a hard hit against the wall and Kyle Busch ran out of gas trying to complete an unprecedented NASCAR trifecta. Kurt Busch won at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, taking over the lead with 2 1/2 laps left when his younger brother's car suddenly slowed on the backstretch after leading 232 of the 334 laps. Johnson, the series points leader, wrecked on the third lap. His crew needed more than an hour to basically rebuild his No. 48 Chevrolet, but he returned to finish 38th -- 129 laps behind Kurt Busch.

Mark Martin is leading NASCAR's Chase for the Cup playoff but Juan Pablo Montoya said Friday that he's keeping his eye on reigning champion Jimmie Johnson. Johnson, who is trying to win a record fourth consecutive title, is second in the Chase playoff, 18 points behind Martin, his teammate at Hendrick Motorsports. And Montoya is third, 51 points behind Martin, as the series prepares for Sunday's Pepsi 500 at Auto Club Speedway, the fourth race in the 10-race Chase. Montoya said that if he can get through the middle races of the Chase "without getting yourself out of reach of Jimmie, you'll be fine."

After nearly winning the pole for today's NASCAR Sprint Cup race, Dale Earnhardt Jr. gave reporters a perfunctory recap of his qualifying lap and race car. Then NASCAR's most popular driver was asked about Mark Martin. Earnhardt took a deep breath, looked down at the microphone and let his affection flow for the 50-year-old veteran. "I'm real happy for him," Earnhardt said. "He was a bridesmaid for so many years, and so here's one guy that's pulling for him to win a championship this year because he's deserved it."