Warrior Smith Charged After Barroom Brawl

Authorities issued a warrant Saturday night for Golden State Warrior forward Joe Smith on a felony charge of malicious wounding in connection with a barroom brawl that ended with a male dancer badly cut.

Chesapeake, Va. police spokeswoman Elizabeth Jones said investigators were looking for Smith, the Warriors No. 1 pick last season.

“We are attempting to locate him. If he is not in the area, then we will contact him wherever he is,” Jones said. She said the charge is a Class II felony, which generally have sentences running from 5 years to life in prison.

According to witnesses, Smith was part of a group that attack a male exotic dancer at Ridley’s Restaurant and Lounge a male dancer around 1 a.m. on Friday.

Dancer David Turner claimed that Smith smashed a beer bottle against the back of Carlton Coney, causing a gash between his shoulder blades that required 22 stitches.

Turner said the 6-foot-10 Smith and a group of about 10 others became angry when the dancers wouldn’t end their show by midnight, when Smith’s 21st birthday party was to begin. The dancers said Smith and the group wanted the floor to themselves.

Smith declined to comment when reached late Saturday by The Virginian-Pilot, saying, “I’ll just wait on that.”

Auto Racing

Jimmy Vasser needed to make a statement. He did that emphatically with a record-setting qualifying run at Michigan International Speedway at Brooklyn, Mich.

Vasser, whose lead in the PPG Cup standings had been trimmed to eight points over Al Unser Jr., earned the pole for today’s Marlboro 500 with a lap of 234.665 mph around the two-mile oval.

In earning his fourth pole of the Indy-car season, Vasser broke the track qualifying record of 234.275 mph set in 1993 by Mario Andretti. Four poles is the most by any Indy-car driver this season.

Italian rookie Alex Zanardi, a teammate of Vasser’s with Target-Chip Ganassi Racing, had the second-fastest lap at 233.501.

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Paul Tracy suffered a chipped vertebra and was unable to qualify for today’s race after crashing his car during practice.

With about five minutes remaining in the practice, Tracy’s car hit the wall between Turns 3 and 4 and slid down to the bottom of the track.

Tracy was examined at the IndyCar Mobile Medical Facility at MIS and was flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital. He will be evaluated over the next 10 days to determine if he can compete Aug. 11 at the Miller 200 in Lexington, Ohio.

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Greg Sacks held off record-setting pole-winner Joe Nemechek on the last lap to win the Humminbird Fishfinder 500-Kilometer race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.

It was the first victory in 13 Busch Grand National starts for Sacks.

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Blaine Johnson held the lead in top fuel qualifying for the NHRA Autolite Nationals at Sonoma, Calif., taking the top spot for the ninth time this year with a quarter-mile run of 4.614 seconds at 308.74 mph.

John Force led the funny car division in 4.980 at 303.64, both Sears Point Raceway records. Kurt Johnson topped pro stock with a run of 7.020 at 196.54. . . . Damon Hill had a qualifying run of 146.9 mph to win the pole position for today’s German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, Germany.

Tennis

Alberto Berasategui defeated Emilio Alvarez, 4-6, 6-1, 6-3, in the All-Spanish semifinals of the Generali Open at Kitzbuhel, Austria.

Berasategui’s opponent in the finals will be Alex Corretja, who defeated unseeded Juan-Albert Viloca, 7-6 (7-4), 6-1.

Pro Basketball

Howard Eisley, a point guard who appeared in 65 games last season for Utah, re-signed with the Jazz.