Another Robinson Makes History

Shawna Robinson became the first woman to win a Grand National stock car racing pole Thursday as she led the opening round of qualifying for Saturday’s Busch Light 300 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Robinson, the second-fastest qualifier a week ago at Richmond, Va., beat former Grand National champion Joe Nemechek for the top spot.

She is the only woman to win either a race or a pole in a NASCAR touring series, having won a 1988 NASCAR Dash Series event and three Dash Series poles in 1989.

Robinson failed to qualify in four of 28 races in 1993, her first full season on the Grand National circuit.

Robinson’s Chevrolet Lumina turned a lap at 174.330 m.p.h. on the 1.522-mile oval. Nemechek went 174.118 in another Lumina.

Jurisprudence

Former Dodger pitcher Don Newcombe, a recovering alcoholic who has crusaded against substance abuse, has filed a $100-million lawsuit against Adolf Coors Brewing Co., claiming his likeness was used without his permission in one of the brewery’s magazine ads.

Newcombe, 67, alleges in the suit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court that an ad for Killian’s Red Beer in the Feb. 14 Sports Illustrated resembles a photograph taken of him in the 1950s. A Coors spokesman said the company was assured by the ad agency that the art was original.

Derek Bonney, 31, was sentenced to four years in jail in South Paris, Me., for manslaughter and drunken driving in the highway death of Jean Paul Parisien, the older brother of skiers Julie, Anna and Robbie Parisien.

Julie Parisien, 22, announced this week that she was still distraught over her brother’s death in 1992 and would not race for the rest of the 1994 World Cup season and might retire.

Tennis

Second-seeded Jonas Svensson of Sweden was upset in the second round of the Zaragoza Open, losing to David Prinosil of Germany at Zaragoza, Spain, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3. Svensson’s loss left the tournament without its top two seeds. Top-seeded Karel Novacek of the Czech Republic, the defending champion, lost in the first round.

Steffi Graf changed her mind and will play at the Hamburg tournament on April 25 where Monica Seles was stabbed last year.

Miscellany

Michelle Estill shot a career-low 65 to take the first-round lead in the $450,000 Ping-Welch’s LPGA tournament at Tucson. She has a two-stroke lead over Sherri Steinhauer and Donna Andrews.

The world’s top bull riders will vie for a $20,000 purse in the 1994 Wrangler Bull Riders Only championship series Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Long Beach Arena.

The Calgary Flames, trying to improve their defense, traded defenseman Gary Suter and forwards Paul Ranheim and Ted Drury to the Hartford Whalers for forward Mikael Nylander and defensemen Zarley Zalapski and James Patrick.

Martin Buser and Charlie Boulding were bumped, at least temporarily, from the top two positions in the Iditarod sled dog race when Canada’s David Olesen breezed in and out of Ophir without taking his 24-hour mandatory layover. Olesen, who arrived about an hour after midnight, left about two hours later for the 60-mile run to Cripple, which is the halfway point in the 1,100-mile race.

Forward Larry Johnson of the Charlotte Hornets was activated after missing more than two months with a back injury, a stretch during which the Hornets went 9-22.

Indiana Coach Bob Knight’s head bump with one of his players--Sherron Wilkerson--against Michigan State was an accident, a school spokesman said in Indianapolis.

Fernando Vargas, a 16-year-old from Oxnard boxing in his first U.S. Amateur Championships, upset Abayomi Miller, 19, the defending 132-pound champion from Toledo, Ohio., to move into the finals in Colorado Springs, Colo.