Kenseth Uses Late Push to Win Delaware Race
Matt Kenseth and Jamie McMurray made it a 1-2 Nextel Cup race finish for Roush Racing.
And what a thrilling finish it was.
McMurray was the driver to beat, holding the lead for most of the final 90 laps Sunday until the patient Kenseth made his move, passing two drivers late before the leader was firmly in view.
Kenseth reached McMurray in lapped traffic, raced side-by-side, then dipped low on a clean pass off the fourth turn with three laps left and pulled away to win NASCAR’s Neighborhood Excellence 400 at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del.
“They were leaving me plenty of room to pass,†Kenseth said. “I just caught him at the right time and was able to just barely squeeze in front.â€
Kevin Harvick finished third, followed by Jeff Burton and Kyle Busch. Jimmie Johnson maintained the points lead, finishing sixth after starting a season-worst 42nd.
Kenseth’s No. 17 Ford started nipping at the leaders with about 30 laps left in the caution-marred race.
First, he passed Burton, then Harvick. All that was left was McMurray.
With three laps to go, Kenseth got by McMurray after the leader was slowed a bit by Michael Waltrip’s lapped car. With one lap to go, Kenseth pulled away for his second win of the season and 12th of his career.
“It was really exciting,†Kenseth said. “I feel bad for Jamie.â€
The win earned him a small boost in the points standings. Kenseth sliced Johnson’s lead from 109 points to 74.
Injured defending champ Tony Stewart completed 38 laps before Ricky Rudd replaced him. Stewart drove with a broken shoulder blade suffered last week at Charlotte.
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Scott Dixon won a slippery battle of attrition at Watkins Glen International, holding off Vitor Meira and Ryan Briscoe in a one-lap shootout to win the IRL Indy Grand Prix for the second straight year at Watkins Glen, N.Y.
The ugly, ever-changing weather -- showers came and went all day and temperatures were in the mid-50s -- made the fifth race of the 14-race IRL season a guessing game from the start over the 11-turn, 3.4-mile road course. Drivers switched back and forth from slicks to rain tires and endured multiple yellow flags as cars repeatedly spun.
At the end, the top four cars were on slicks as rain again began to fall, and Buddy Rice led a group with rain tires trying in vain to run down the leader. But Dixon’s slicks held on, and he led the last eight laps, winning for the fifth time in the IRL.
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Sebastien Bourdais ended his run of hard luck at the Milwaukee Mile at West Allis, Wis., winning for the fourth time this year with an overpowering victory that left him unbeaten in the 2006 Champ Car World Series.
The Time Warner Cable Road Runner 225 was shortened to 197 laps because of a 1-hour, 45-minute time limit. But even if the race had gone its scheduled 225 laps, it’s likely nothing would have changed for Bourdais.
This was the 20th victory of his 49-race Champ car career.
Katherine Legge, the only woman in the series, became the first female to lead a Champ Car race when she led for 12 laps near the start of the race.
SOCCER
FIFA Agrees to Tougher Doping Suspensions
Bowing to pressure to enact stricter doping penalties, FIFA will adopt minimum two-year suspensions yet still allow national soccer associations to reduce bans for special circumstances.
FIFA executive committee member Chuck Blazer said his organization is compliant “on paper†with the World Anti-Doping Agency’s guidelines. WADA had pressured FIFA to get tougher.
“In principle, we agree to the two-year suspensions, which in some cases could be more or could be less,†Blazer said. “We still maintain individual case management.â€
The recommendation from the executive committee of soccer’s world governing body must be adopted later this week by the FIFA congress. It is designed to resolve the dispute with WADA, which has accused soccer of not complying with its doping code. All governing bodies must abide by the code or risk being removed from the Olympics.
WADA has complained that FIFA’s bans of six months to two years were insufficient and threatened to recommend that the International Olympic Committee throw soccer out of the Summer Games.
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Ronaldo, Adriano and Kaka each scored and Brazil comfortably defeated New Zealand, 4-0, in a World Cup warmup game at Geneva, its last match before heading to Germany to defend the world title.
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Ghana beat 2002 World Cup semifinalist South Korea, 3-1, as Asamoah Gyan, Sulley Muntari and Michael Essien scored a goal each for Ghana, which will make its World Cup debut against Italy, the United States and the Czech Republic in Group E.
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Australia’s punishing tactics and the goalkeeping of Mark Schwarzer held the Netherlands to a 1-1 tie in a warmup game at Rotterdam.
MISCELLANY
Bengals’ Henry Is in Trouble Again
Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry was charged with speeding and drunk driving at Mount Carmel, Ohio, his third scrape with the law since December.
Henry registered a blood-alcohol content of 0.092 on a breath test and was clocked at 82 miles per hour in a 65-mph zone, said Sgt. Craig Cvetan, a State Highway Patrol spokesman. The legal limit is 0.08.
The 23-year-old Henry cooperated with investigators, who issued him a citation and released him into a friend’s custody, Cvetan said.
The player has an initial appearance set for Friday in Clermont County Common Municipal Court on the misdemeanor counts.
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Joe Hamilton threw four touchdown passes, two to Javarus Dudley, to help the Orlando Predators beat the Dallas Desperados, 45-28, at Dallas, and clinch their record seventh berth in the ArenaBowl.
Orlando will play Chicago on Sunday in Las Vegas. The Rush advanced to the title game with a 59-56 win over the San Jose SaberCats on Saturday.
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