Race Car Drivers

Racing's first three-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 lives here, just to the side of a county road winding toward Cottonwood Cove, down past the town cemetery to the softball field, where the sign reads: "Cross at your own risk." Cross the sandy wash, and more than likely you will find Louie Meyer--winner of the 1928, 1933 and 1936 Indy 500s--sitting on his porch, soaking up the dry warmth of a 100-plus-degree desert day.

  Authorities have identified the victims of a California raceway crash as a race car owner and the 14-year-old cousin of the teenage driver. The Yuba County Sheriff's office said the crash occurred at Marysville Raceway Park in Santa Rosa when the race car driven by Chase Johnson careened off the track and into the pit row, striking and killing 68-year-old Dale Wondergem Jr. and 14-year-old Marcus Johnson on Saturday. Chase Johnson, 17, was not injured in the accident.

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.

Race car driver Ken Block speeds down a narrow band of asphalt in his souped-up Ford Fiesta, careening through the "Back to the Future" set on Universal Studios' back lot. The speedometer flies toward 80. Block's eyes are fixed on the road as he accelerates toward an invitation-only crowd of gear heads in town for the Los Angeles Auto Show. When he whips around the corner toward Courthouse Square in Marty McFly's hometown, Block sees a sea of undistinguishable faces. He plants his foot on the accelerator, then pulls back on a massive hand brake on his right side.

John deVries, self-styled "pit bull of the Indy Racing League," was beginning to discuss his childhood days in Newport Beach with a reporter when the phone rang in his California Speedway garage. "It's Spree," said the bald 36-year-old IRL driver. "He calls after every practice session, wanting to know how we did. He's really into racing." Spree is Latrell Sprewell, the New York Knick forward, whose Sprewell Motorsports is part owner of the Pit Bull-Rhino Racing team for whom DeVries drives.

For more than a year after being shot in the head, race car driver Chris Trickle fought against all odds to come out of a coma. His family stayed by his bedside, hoping and praying for the miracle that never came. On Wednesday, their struggle finally ended. Thirteen months after a bullet ended Trickle's promising racing career, it finally ended his life. Trickle, 25, died at a local hospital.

Race car driver Dave Rosenblum spoke Thursday to about 400 Oxnard youths about drug abuse, chronicling his own battle and warning of the perils of addiction. "This is not something I'm real proud to admit, but I'm a recovering drug addict," Rosenblum told fourth- through sixth-graders at Oxnard's Driffill elementary school. "I am 46 years old, and I spent the best years of my life--from the age of 17 to 34--screwing up my life. I wasted the best years of my life."

Athl e te: "One who takes part in . . . exercises, sports or games requiring mental agility, endurance or strength." --Webster's Third New International Dictionary Are race drivers athletes? Derek Daly of Ireland and Geoff Brabham, long removed from Australia, have their own ways of answering that old question. They are teammates with Team Nissan. Brabham has already clinched the International Motor Sports Assn.'

Race car driver Rocky Moran, who a few months ago was beaten by teen-agers in his neighborhood, suffered another misfortune when fire spread through his home, authorities said Wednesday. The source of the fire Tuesday night was apparently a propane barbecue attached to the house, which had been used an hour earlier. It spread to the second, third and fourth floors, causing the fourth-floor ceiling to collapse and injure four firefighters.

Jason Priestley, heartthrob of the 1990s TV teen drama "Beverly Hills 90210," was in serious condition Sunday after his car slammed into two retaining walls during a practice lap at a Kentucky auto race. The actor's Indy-style car, traveling at nearly 180 mph, hit an outside wall coming out of the second turn of the final practice lap for the Kentucky 100 at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, then spun and hit an inside wall.

"I've always had mixed feelings about this place," IndyCar driver Tony Kanaan said of Auto Club Speedway, and it's not surprising. Fellow driver Greg Moore, one of Kanaan's close friends, was killed in a racing crash at the two-mile Fontana track in 1999. "It's not something you want to remember," Kanaan said. "Having said that, every time I'm here I finish in the top five," Kanaan said, then added that the net result was "it's definitely a good feeling to come back. " Kanaan was seeking his first win this year when the Izod IndyCar Series held its season-ending race Saturday night at Auto Club Speedway, the first time Indy-style cars had raced there since October 2005.

With films such as"Unstoppable"and "Man on Fire," Tony Scott told adrenaline-filled stories about fearless men - spies and cops, race car drivers and fighter pilots - who live by a code and face death on their own terms. He filled his cinematic landscape with intrigue and action, avoiding computer effects in favor of real-life stunts with speeding trains and screaming jets, even once shutting down the Mississippi River to blow up a ferryboat. In life, the British director-producer shared many characteristics with his alpha-male action heroes.

As four of the most experienced drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series battled for the win Sunday in the Auto Club 500, right behind them was 19-year-old Joey Logano. And to hear folks in the NASCAR garage tell it, the sport had better get used to seeing the lanky youngster mix it up with the leaders each week during the 36-race Cup schedule. Logano, the stock car racing phenom who took over the prized Cup ride vacated by two-time champion Tony Stewart last year, started 19th and finished fifth in Sunday's race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is curbing his enthusiasm. While relishing his near victory in last week's Daytona 500, the most popular driver in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series knows he's back at what has been -- for him -- the unfriendly confines of Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. Still, Earnhardt said Friday that he hopes to maintain momentum from his second-place finish behind winner Jamie McMurray in the Daytona 500 with another strong showing Sunday at the Fontana track. "I enjoy finishing up front; it had been a long time since we had finished [well]

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.

As NASCAR drivers take their warm-up lap around the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Feb. 28, a shiny Shelby GT350 will lead the way. The pace car's trip to the racetrack will be remarkably short because it was built -- or, more precisely, modified -- right across the street at Shelby American, where workers convert Ford Mustangs into Shelby GTs and assemble the legendary Cobras from scratch. Former race car driver Carroll Shelby began making sports cars in Los Angeles nearly 50 years ago but relocated to three buildings just off Interstate 15 -- about 20 minutes north of the Strip, on Speedway Boulevard -- in 1998.

One sees the name Alex Gurney listed among drivers in the Kool-Toyota Atlantic race in Long Beach this weekend, and there arises an image of yet another second-generation driver encouraged by his family to follow in Dad's tire tracks. That's the way the Pettys, Unsers, Andrettis and many others did it. But not the Gurneys. "My parents were 100% against me pursuing a career as a racing driver," the 24-year-old Atlantic rookie says.

The National Hot Rod Assn. lifted the competition license of drag racing champion Darrell Alderman and suspended him indefinitely Friday after learning that he had pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine. Alderman, winner of the past two NHRA pro stock championships, drove a Dodge Daytona to victory in 11 of 14 national events last season, setting a record for victories in a season.

Even after winning an unprecedented six consecutive NHRA top-fuel championships, Tony Schumacher still is driving scared -- much to his rivals' chagrin. "I'm afraid to lose right now," he said Friday. "[My title streak is] going to end at some point, I just don't want it to end this year." This year starts this weekend with the 50th Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, the season opener for the National Hot Rod Assn.'s Full Throttle Series. The series' fastest class is top fuel -- dragsters that reach 320 mph -- and Schumacher, 40, is top fuel's preeminent driver and reigning champion.

Can Tony Schumacher possibly win a seventh consecutive series title? Will Ashley Force Hood or Antron Brown win their first? And can Larry Dixon bounce back from losing last year's title by the narrowest margin on record? As the new season of the National Hot Rod Assn.'s premier Full Throttle Series gets underway with the 50th running of the Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway Thursday through Sunday in Pomona, here's a preview of the competition in the sport's four leading divisions: Top fuel A key architect behind Schumacher's five consecutive season-long titles from 2004 to 2008 was Alan Johnson, his crew chief.