Pileup

Danica Patrick is as curious as everyone else to see how well she performs in her second NASCAR stock car race Saturday. Patrick made her debut last weekend in NASCAR's second-tier Nationwide Series, but her race ended after a car wreck just past the halfway point on the high-banked Daytona International Speedway. Her next race is the Stater Bros. 300 at the much flatter, two-mile Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. "I don't know what to expect [at Fontana]," Patrick said in an interview, adding that she and her crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., "haven't really talked about it too much" ahead of her first practice here on Friday.

Stung by criticism, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger blasted his administration's Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, plagued by a massive backlog in handling appeals of jobless Californians denied unemployment compensation. The board has blamed the governor's policies for at least part of an 82,500-case pileup, citing state-ordered work furloughs for its employees. Now Schwarzenegger is firing back, saying board staff members, including judges, are not working hard enough.

Six people were injured, one critically, in a five-car collision Thursday on the eastbound 91 Freeway in Long Beach. Firefighters responded to a report of an injury accident and a vehicle on fire shortly before 5 a.m. on the freeway at Paramount Boulevard, Long Beach Fire Department spokesman Jackawa Jackson wrote on the agency's blog. "There were five vehicles involved in the collision," Jackson wrote. One car was on fire when firefighters arrived, but the driver managed to climb out before it was engulfed in flames.

The eastbound 210 Freeway was closed for nearly 10 hours Friday in Irwindale after a series of traffic accidents left two people dead. At least seven vehicles were involved in the crashes, according to the California Highway Patrol. A preliminary CHP report outlines this sequence of events: Two cars collided at 5:47 a.m. The drivers of those cars then pulled to the side of the freeway and were standing outside their vehicles when the driver of a stake-bed truck changed lanes to avoid the crash.

Ford Motor Co.'s F-150 pickup is the top-selling vehicle in America with more than 436,000 purchased through October. But when people stop buying the F-150 -- and 26% fewer have been sold this year than last -- it's not just Ford and its workers that suffer. Falling sales dry up orders for antifreeze made in Illinois by a division of Honeywell International Inc.

Four people were killed and four others injured in a pileup involving at least 11 cars and big rigs on eastbound I-40 on Sunday morning near Newberry Springs, according to the California Highway Patrol. The crash occurred about 23 miles east of Barstow about 8:30 a.m. The CHP was still investigating the accident Sunday night but said a high wind advisory was in effect on the road at the time of the incident and that one of the trucks ended up on top of a car. Names of those who died were not released.

A Texas man has pleaded not guilty to felony charges related to a pileup on California 99 that killed two people and injured 68 others last fall. Morris Earl Taylor, 61, entered the plea Monday in Fresno County Superior Court. He has been charged with driving under the influence and causing injury, and driving at a speed unsafe for conditions. Seven other people have been charged, and 40 others have been cited for speeding in connection with the pileup that involved 92 vehicles and closed the highway for 13 hours.