Saturday, September 24, 2011

SPORTS - Italy's Bronzini wins cycling worlds road race (AP)

SPORTS - Italy's Bronzini wins cycling worlds road race (AP)
Kyle Busch AP – Kyle Busch climbs out of his car and raises his arms to fans after winning the NASCAR Trucks Series auto …

LOUDON, N.H. – Kyle Busch can see the time when his own team thrives without him behind the wheel.

That time is not now — not with sponsors clamoring to sticker his truck with ads. Busch's success drives the corporate dollars that fill the Kyle Busch Motorsports coffers, almost forcing him out on the track most weeks to keep the company running.

"They want the guaranteed chance to go to Victory Lane," Busch said.

Busch is about as close as it gets to a guaranteed win in the Trucks Series. His latest victory was a romp, as he led all but 10 laps in one of the more dominating performances this season in the Trucks Series to win the race Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

"It was fun for us," Busch said, "maybe not for others."

Busch started from the pole and was never threatened en route to his 30th career victory in the series. He led 165 of the 175 laps and won for the sixth time this season.

Busch has 18 victories this season in Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Trucks.

Oh, and Busch believed he can duplicate the dominance on Sunday in the Sprint Cup series.

"A lot of the feel that I've been looking for in my Cup car I felt this weekend in my truck," Busch said. "We made a lot of changes to my Cup car over the weekend this weekend. We're vastly different than we've ever run here in the past. I'm hoping it doesn't bite us, but I can't see us going in the wrong direction."

Austin Dillon was second and claimed the lead in the points standings. He leads James Buescher by two points and has the championship in sight as the season winds down. Dillon chewed up some seconds on Busch's lead over the final laps, but it was way too late to end up in Victory Lane.

"He had such a big lead there at the end," Dillon said. "We could make big chunks of time out of his lead when he got in traffic and that was the only time we could gain on him. I wish we could have come out closer to him on pit road."

Dillon wasn't close on pit road and he couldn't catch him at the finish line. That spot was reserved for Busch.

"The truck was awesome today," Busch said.

Kevin Harvick, Ron Hornaday and Johnny Sauter rounded out the top five. Matt Crafton was sixth and only six drivers finished on the lead lap.

It was that kind of race, leaving little for Busch to break down. He stormed to the lead and stayed there under green to prove why he's one of the top drivers in any form of racing.

So talk turned to the future of Kyle Busch Motorsports. Busch said there are plans to expand the operation in the Trucks Series and maybe start a Nationwide team. Of course, it all depends on whether Busch can generate the sponsors needed to keep that many entries afloat.

"We'd like to move into two full time trucks at least and we'll see what happens from there," Busch said.

Once of those future plans could see Busch surrendering his ride. Busch, who won his 104th career NASCAR race, set 200 victories as a goal and stepping away from the Trucks Series could curtail that number.

"We've got to make sure that we can live and strive off of somebody besides myself," Busch said. "We're working towards that and we're trying really, really hard."

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SPORTS - Baddeley, Mahan tied for the lead at East Lake (AP)

SPORTS - Baddeley, Mahan tied for the lead at East Lake (AP)
 Deon Grant AP – New York Giants defensive back Deon Grant is helped up by trainers during the first quarter of an NFL …

With the number of injuries Deon Grant claims he's had, he probably should be in a hospital bed instead of lining up at safety for the New York Giants.

Two torn MCLs, a hole in his labrum, and a torn rotator cuff. Wrist issues, a torn ligament, and screws and a plate in his hip.

Did I mention the bad knee?

Tough guy, this Grant. So tough that he says he has never missed a game due to injury in his 11 years in the NFL.

So what was he doing flopping around like a beached mackerel when he was supposed to be defending near the goal line against St. Louis the other night?

"I am glad you asked me that," Grant said before going into a long defense that included a recap of every injury he has had in the NFL.

The latest was the swollen knee, which coincidentally happened at the same time teammate Jacquian Williams suddenly fell to the ground with what he would call a cramp. The injuries got the Giants a timeout, and they recuperated enough to stop the Rams from scoring a touchdown.

What they probably didn't count on was St. Louis quarterback Sam Bradford hearing Giants defenders telling someone to "go down" because they couldn't substitute in time and were out of position to stop the Rams in their no-huddle offense. Bradford complained about it later, and suddenly what had been an open secret was no secret anymore.

So now the NFL is cracking down. Players and coaches have been warned.

The designated flopper on your defense? Make sure he knows how to play the part.

"I can tell you no one in this league is going to be any good at acting," said Steelers defensive end Aaron Smith. "They're probably not going to get any Oscar or Emmys for whatever they did."

Grant and Williams certainly won't. They couldn't get a role in a bad YouTube sketch the way they went down together.

It's their lot in life, though. No one, after all, is going to ask someone like Troy Polamalu or Ray Lewis to hit the turf.

"It's usually not a captain of the team," said Dolphins running back Reggie Bush. "It's a guy who's expendable."

A league memo obtained this week by The Associated Press warns of fines, suspensions and the loss of draft picks if the league determines a player faked an injury to stop both the clock and the other team's momentum. Just how the league is going to figure out who is faking and who isn't wasn't quite spelled out, but surely there's someone in a back room at the NFL's offices working late hours to come up with anti-faking formulas.

Feigned outrage at being called an actor might be tipoff No. 1.

"How can another person or the media tell you when you're hurt or faking an injury?" asked Grant. "They had a good offense. The drove the ball on us the whole game. That's something that will get you fatigued. So if five guys were to have caught a cramp on that particular play that can happen."

In Grant's defense, he does have a point. Instant replay can show only so much, and games in the NFL are already long enough without someone having to haul an MRI machine out on the field to finger a faker.

But the flopping may have cost the Rams a touchdown. And that could have cost them the game Monday night in New York.

"If the offense is a no-huddle and it's fairly evident that the defense goes down just to slow the offense down, I think there's got to be some sort of penalty," Bradford said. "That's the frustrating thing to me. When they have a couple of guys go down and look over and one of them sees the other guy on the ground and gets up, then it's like you've got to be kidding me."

Coaches and players around the league danced around the topic when asked by AP writers this week whether they've got a designated flopper for the times when the moment calls for it.

When it comes to other teams, though, they were a bit more, shall we say, candid.

"I've been places where it has been," Browns linebacker Scott Fujita said. "They have a name for it and I've been places where it's been pre-called. I've been places where it's one player who has been designated. Maybe I'm getting everyone in trouble, but I'm just being honest."

That may be, though honesty, though, isn't always the best policy in the NFL. In a league where deceit often is the key to victory, some things are better left unsaid.

Don't expect a league memo to change that. Teams may have to become more creative, but guys will continue to drop at crucial times. They'll get away with it, too, because there is no real way to prove intent.

The Giants, though, will have to find someone else to feign injury next time. Grant has been exposed.

He's about to become a former flopper.

___

Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org or follow him at http://twitter.com/timdahlberg

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SPORTS - Kyle Busch wins Trucks race at New Hampshire (AP)

SPORTS - Kyle Busch wins Trucks race at New Hampshire (AP)
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SPORTS - Olympic Training Centers take on new look (AP)

SPORTS - Olympic Training Centers take on new look (AP)
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SPORTS - Moore throws 4TDs, Broncos beat Tulsa 41-21 (AP)

SPORTS - Moore throws 4TDs, Broncos beat Tulsa 41-21 (AP)
Amanda Rodrigues AP – Amanda Rodrigues, widow of former boxing champion Arturo Gatti, arrives at the Montreal courthouse on …

MONTREAL – Arturo Gatti's widow can no longer be questioned at trial about the night before the boxing champion died.

Justice Claudine Roy agreed Friday with the lawyer for Amanda Rodrigues, who argued the events of that night are not relevant to the ongoing civil trial dealing with the late boxer's estate.

Rodrigues and the Gatti family are disputing who should get the estimated $3.4 million in Gatti's estate.

On Thursday, Rodrigues testified that a drunken Gatti hit her in public and was involved in a street brawl just hours before he died in a Brazilian resort in 2009.

Gatti was found dead the next morning in their vacation home. His family does not accept the conclusion of Brazilian authorities that he committed suicide.

The family also rejects the legitimacy of the will, signed weeks before his death, that left everything to Rodrigues.

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SPORTS - Gatti judge: No more testimony on night he died (AP)

SPORTS - Gatti judge: No more testimony on night he died (AP)
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SPORTS - Jones dominates Rampage Jackson to defend title (AP)

SPORTS - Jones dominates Rampage Jackson to defend title (AP)
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