Foyt Manages To Get Third Car In Indy 500 Lineup

Auto racing

Paul Durant gave car owner A.J. Foyt the thumbs-up sign, got a good-luck slap on the helmet and bumped his way into the Indianapolis 500 lineup in a car two other drivers had crashed.

Driving an entry originally assigned to defending Indy Racing League co-champion Scott Sharp, Durant qualified at 209.149 mph Sunday, well above the 203 he needed to take advantage of the IRL qualifying exemption.

That bumped Alessandro Zampedri, who was not guaranteed a starting spot, but Zampedri got back into the field by qualifying even faster. He bumped Lyn St. James moments before rain hit the track in mid-afternoon.

“Ideally we would have liked to have run some more laps and got the speed up, but with the weather looming, you never know what’s going to happen, so we just decided to get it in the show,” said Durant, who had been getting ready to go home before he got a last-minute invitation from Foyt.

The four-time Indy 500 champion already had Davey Hamilton and Billy Boat in the May 25 race.

Sharp was the first Foyt driver in the No. 1 G Force-Aurora, but he crashed during practice the week before and suffered a concussion and mild brain hemorrhage. On Friday, Johnny O’Connell, subbing for Sharp, dislocated the arch of his left foot in another crash.

Durant, 32nd in his rookie Indy 500 last year, practiced for the first time Sunday morning.

Wife of NASCAR team owner killed

The wife of NASCAR team owner Leonard Wood was killed, and he was among those injured in a crash on Interstate 85 shortly after the completion of a race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Betty Webb Wood, 64, of Stewart, Va., was killed about 10:50 p.m. Saturday when a southbound car jumped the median and hit the northbound van in which she was traveling, the state Highway Patrol said.

The two people in the car which hit the van also were killed. Authorities identified them as Felix Formelu, 35, and Sharon Wilkinson Formelu, 30, of Charlotte.

Troopers said Leonard Wood’s injuries were not life threatening. Four other members of the Wood family also were injured.

NASCAR Busch series

Elliott Sadler, last in the race a year ago, got the first NASCAR Busch series victory of his career in the CoreStates Advantage 200 at Nazareth (Pa.) Speedway.

After starting from the pole, Sadler led 107 of 200 laps and held off a hard-charging Todd Bodine to win by just .209 seconds in a Chevrolet.

Sadler averaged 92.700 mph, and took home $30,887 from the $321,620 purse.