Slowly but Surely, Crane Triumphs Again

Filed under: PGA

SAN DIEGO — For a player who had two career PGA Tour wins in nine seasons before arriving at Torrey Pines for the Farmers Insurance Open, Ben Crane on Sunday looked very much like he knew exactly what he was doing.

At least he did until the winning three-foot putt for par on the final hole dropped.

That’s when Crane turned quizzically to caddie Joel Stock, looking very much like a man suddenly realizing his pants were on fire.

“You know, I did not know that I had won when it was over,” Crane said. “I didn’t know who was playing well. I didn’t know what was really going on in front of me. I had no idea what was going on.

“I’m thankful I didn’t. Someone said, ‘one-shot lead’ when we were going to the last hole, so I thought he might be right.”

Still, Crane insisted victory did not register until final-group playing partner Ryuji Imada made it official.

“He goes, ‘Congratulations,’ and I go, ‘Did I win?’ ” Crane said. “He kind of looks at me. I said, ‘Did I win the tournament?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah.’ “

It meant the 33-year-old golf wallflower did everything the pros with their own airplanes did, only a little bit better.

 

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First-year Porsche Team Bests Ganassi BMWs in Rolex 24

Filed under: Daytona Int’l Speedway

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — It wasn’t the team with the biggest budget, most famous driver lineup or highest pre-race expectations.

But after 24 hours of steady, careful, pedal-to-the-metal effort, the first-year, first-race Action Express Racing team led the mighty TELMEX Chip Ganassi Racing team across the finish line by less than a minute to claim the Rolex 24 at Daytona trophy on Sunday afternoon.

Action Express driver Mike Rockenfeller took the lead in the No. 9 Porsche-V8 Riley when Ganassi driver Justin Wilson pitted unexpectedly with less than three hours remaining, convinced there was a problem with the team’s No. 01 BMW Riley. After a five-minute once-over in the Daytona International Speedway garage, the team couldn’t find anything obviously wrong and sent the car back on track — two laps down and forced to try to play catch-up.

It’s the second consecutive runner-up effort in the Grand Am Series sportscar season-opener for the Ganassi team, which won three straight from 2006-2008. Including the 52-second differential on Sunday, the team has lost the last two Rolex 24-hour races by less than a minute.

 

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Phil’s Gone and Done It Again

Filed under: PGA

SAN DIEGO — Phil Mickelson arrived at Torrey Pines for Saturday’s third round of the Farmers Insurance Open embroiled in controversy.

Once play began Lefty was soon so far down a ravine after his tee shot on No. 4, he was almost as close to Black’s Beach, a local clothing-optional hangout, as the fairway. Three holes later, he was up a tree, his tee ball stuck in a giant eucalyptus.

And then there was Mickelson’s last stop for the day: The leaderboard.

It was Philly Mick at his most Philly Mick-est — gambling, scrambling and then pontificating — on the way to a 2-under 70 that puts him 9 under par for the week and four shots back of leader Ryuji Imada heading into Sunday’s final round.

“I’m in position where a good round will get it done,” he said. “Something in the mid-to-high 60s is going to have a chance.”

 

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2009 FanHouse Cup Rewind: Tony Stewart, 6th

Filed under: Tony Stewart, Sprint Cup, Stewart-Haas Racing

THE SEASON: Anyone contemplating the story of Tony Stewart’s 2009 season before the fact might easily come away with the thought “career suicide after the two-time champion pulled up his roots at Joe Gibbs Racing to become a co-owner of an oft-struggling Sprint Cup Series team.

Stewart, incredibly, decided to leave behind his legacy as a consistent winner at Gibbs Racing, where he won Sprint Cup championships in 2002 and 2005, when he made the official announcement at Chicagoland Speedway creating Stewart-Haas Racing.

 

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Where NASCAR and IndyCar Drivers Go to Have Fun

Filed under: Jimmie Johnson, Juan Pablo Montoya, Daytona Int’l Speedway

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The autograph line wound from the garage to Daytona International Speedway’s famous victory lane, at least a full football field away.

One man took a vacation day from his job to drive three hours from Valdosta, Ga., to wait six more hours in line just to get NASCAR champ Jimmie Johnson to sign a photo and a shirt. A family waited nearly as long to have former Indy 500 winner Juan Pablo Montoya sign 10 miniature replicas of the No. 42 Chevy he drives in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

“This is one of the cheapest races we can go to,” said Fernando Zapata, 42, who brings his wife and two young children to the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona sports car race every year.

To see their favorite NASCAR drivers.

It’s enough to make sports car purists cringe, but for the Grand-Am Series – NASCAR’s sports car sibling – it doesn’t matter why fans are coming through the gates or watching on television. As long as they’re paying attention.

 

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Unknowns Lead While Mickelson Stalks

Filed under: PGA

SAN DIEGO — It is a little more than a week before the Super Bowl, college basketball is in the heart of conference play, Major League Baseball is ready to elbow its way into sports talk, and the PGA Tour gets Ryuji Imada and D.A. Points (photo right) on the leaderboard.

What did it do to deserve this?

It’s one thing to be Tigerless. It’s another when you start to wonder if Federal Witness Protection discovered this week’s Farmers Insurance Open as a relocation site.

If you are the tournament ticket manager hoping big names will attract a weekend crowd, you read the scoreboard and look for a steep cliff — which, by the way, are plentiful around here.

Whooooooo are those guys?

 

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John Daly Says He’s Done With Golf

Filed under: PGA

SAN DIEGO — John Daly retired from golf Friday.

After finishing 36 holes in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines 6-over and missing the cut, Daly said he was quitting.

It would make a bigger impact if the troubled golfer did not have such a long history of quitting — quite often in the middle of a round.

Still, it is possible.

“I’m done,” Daly said. “Just can’t play like I used to. … I’m tired of embarrassing myself.”

 

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NASCAR’s Johnson Helps Sports Car Team Get on Track

Filed under: Jimmie Johnson, Daytona Int’l Speedway

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona is billed as a grueling, endurance test of driver, car and crew. For NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson and the defending Grand-Am Series champion GAINSCO team, that describes the 24 hours just leading into the historic sports car season-opener.

The four-time Sprint Cup champ Johnson was still smarting Friday from a collision in Thursday’s opening practice for this weekend’s twice-around-the-clock race through the Daytona International Speedway road course.

 

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A Pay Cut for NASCAR Teams: Purses Slashed by 10 Percent

The struggling economy has reached out and touched NASCAR in a new way: reduced purses.

In a cost-cutting measure, NASCAR is decreasing race purses – the amount it pay drivers and car owners in race winnings – by approximately 10 percent in 2010 for all three national series.

‬‪“Last year we launched an industry-wide effort to help the sport manage budgets in this economy,” NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said in a statement. “NASCAR did the right thing to work with the tracks to reduce their costs in order to manage the economic realities.

“In return, the tracks have done a great job reducing ticket prices and enhancing the fan experience. Likewise, we worked with the teams to contain costs, such as elimination of testing and other steps. This is consistent with how virtually every sport and business has adjusted to the economy over the past year.”

The decrease will help track owners, who have been hit by falling revenues during the recession, but will come at the expense of drivers and team owners in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck series.

International Speedway Corporation, owner of Daytona International Speedway and 11 other major tracks, reported Thursday that revenues fell 11.8 percent from 2008 to 2009. ISC reported revenue of about $693 million for the 12 months ending November 30, 2009 compared to $787 million for the same period in 2008, according to the company’s fourth quarter financial report, which it released Thursday.

The ISC report said ticket sales alone were down $40.5 million, or a drop of 17.1 percent.

Speedway Motorsports, Inc., owner of Charlotte Motor Speedway and seven other major tracks, in November reported a drop in revenues of about $20 million for the first nine months of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008, or a drop from about $480 million to about $460 million.

Both companies managed to remain profitable, but their net income plummeted. ISC’s net income dropped from $134.5 million in 2008 to only $6.8 million last year. Speedway Motorsports’s income dropped from $84.9 million for the first nine months of 2008 to only $4.8 million for the same period last year.

 

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Phony Tiger Quotes Behind Him, the Real Ben Crane Stands Up

Filed under: PGA

SAN DIEGO — Ben Crane finally had an opportunity to speak for himself.

That was something new.

The 33-year-old PGA Tour veteran with two career wins shot a 7-under 65 Thursday in the opening round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. It earned Crane more attention than anything he has done since being quoted during December’s PGA Tour ripping Tiger Woods as “a phony and a fake.”

Even better news: Crane actually did shoot 65 to trail first-round leader Scott Piercy by one shot. That’s more than can be said of his reported comments about Woods.

The harsh words attributed to Crane last month by Life & Style magazine, penned by what the publication called an “experienced freelance reporter,” were never spoken. The “face-to-face interview” conducted in West Palm Beach, Fla., that also included similar criticism of Woods’ personal life by Charles Warren, never took place.

Crane is certain of it.

 

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