Earnhardt to miss more races
Dale Earnhardt Jr. will miss at least two more NASCAR Sprint Cup races while he recovers from a concussion.
Earnhardt, who skipped the last three races, will sit out at Watkins Glen International in New York on Sunday and at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee on Aug. 20. Fourtime series champion Jeff Gordon, who came out of retirement to fill in for Earnhardt the last two weeks, will remain behind the wheel in the No. 88 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.
The team made the announcement Tuesday, saying Earnhardt hasn’t been cleared to race.
Earnhardt underwent further evaluation Monday at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Sports Medicine Concussion Program. The driver said on his weekly podcast that he continues to experience issues with balance and gaze stabilization — the ability to focus on an object while he moves his head.
Earnhardt gave no timetable for his return and said doctors have told him his concussion occurred June 12 at Michigan International Speedway. He drove three races after that one. filed July 1 in Erie County State Supreme Court on behalf of Rachel Kuechle say Kane met her in a bar, invited her to what he said was a party and then attacked her, causing cuts and bleeding that required multiple surgeries.
Without providing details of how she was injured, her lawyers said Kuechle suffered “serious emotional trauma” and “serious, permanent and painful personal injuries.”
Kane had been cleared in March of any criminal charges after authorities investigated the Dec. 27 encounter initially described as a possible sexual assault. Kane pleaded not guilty Monday to non-criminal harassment, disorderly conduct and trespass stemming from an unrelated incident at a bar on June 24.
The NCAA accepted Missouri’s self-imposed sanctions over infractions involving its men’s basketball program but it tacked on a year of probation through August of next year. The NCAA infractions committee panel’s findings over what it said were roughly $11,400 in improper inducements and benefits given to players and a recruit by two boosters were released Tuesday, nearly seven months after Missouri admitted NCAA violations dating to 2011.
In January, the school hoped to blunt NCAA punishment by announcing it was vacating its 23 wins from 2013-14, banning itself from the postseason last season and stripping itself of one scholarship last season and a second scholarship no later than 2017-18.
North Carolina is challenging the NCAA’s jurisdiction to pursue charges in the school’s long-running academic fraud scandal and is holding off on self-imposed penalties. The school released its response to five potentially top-level NCAA charges, which include lack of institutional control. North Carolina acknowledged problems tied to irregular courses in a department popular with athletes on the Chapel Hill campus, but it argued that its accreditation agency — not the NCAA — was the proper authority to handle such a matter.
The Clippers agreed to a one-year deal with Alan Anderson, a guard/forward who played 13 games with the Washington Wizards last season.