Jarrett Wins Southern 500 Pole

Because Dale Jarrett put his crew through a stifling experience the last time they visited Darlington Raceway in South Carolina, he figured the least he owed them was a hot lap.

He turned one Friday, and it was good enough to put him on the pole for the second time in three years for Sunday’s NASCAR Winston Cup Southern 500. It was his third pole in 22 tries on the 1.366-mile oval.

“That was sort of a payback for my guys,” Jarrett said after taking his Ford around the oval at 168.879 mph. “When they came down with me to test a couple of weeks ago, it was about 100 degrees.”

Temperatures were in the 80s this time around and Jarrett was fast enough to beat Darlington record-holder Ward Burton, who qualified his Pontiac second at 168.677.

Burton’s Darlington record is 173.797 mph, set in March, 1996.

Third was Rusty Wallace’s Ford at 168.642, followed by John Andretti’s Pontiac at 168.573 and Jeff Gordon’s Chevrolet at 168.261. Gordon won last year’s race.

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Mike McLaughlin won the pole for today’s Dura Lube 200 Busch Grand National race at Darlington. McLaughlin’s Chevrolet turned a fast lap of 164.661 mph.

Elliott Sadler, with a speed of 164.562, will start alongside McLaughlin, who earned his fifth pole in 151 Busch races.

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Alex Zanardi gave the new Vancouver Molson-Indy layout a thorough test and found it to his liking. Zanardi, who is well on the way to a second consecutive CART FedEx series title, was the only driver able to exceed 100 mph on the 1.802-mile, 14-turn temporary street circuit winding around Concord Pacific Place in downtown Vancouver, Canada.

Zanardi, who has an 80-point lead over teammate Jimmy Vasser, led provisional qualifying with a lap of 100.052 mph.

Boxing

Mark Johnson posted a sixth-round technical knockout over Jose Laureano at Atlantic City, N.J., to retain his International Boxing Federation flyweight title.

Johnson, who plans to move up a weight class in his next fight, combined a relentless body attack and a patient right jab to control the action. In the closing seconds of the sixth round, he cornered Laureano and landed a right uppercut to the chin that sent the challenger slumping to the canvas.

Laureano beat referee Michael Ortega’s count, but the bell rang to end the round and the challenger did not come out for the seventh.

Johnson (36-1, 26 KOs) made his seventh successful defense of the title he won in 1996. Laureano, of Puerto Rico, fell to 15-4-1.

Former world champion Michael Nunn won a lackluster unanimous decision over Glenn Thomas in a 10-round cruiserweight fight at Miami.

Nunn landed punches at will most of the fight and improved his record to 53-4.

Joe LaMotta, 49, the son of former middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta, was among the 229 people killed in the Swissair crash Wednesday night off Nova Scotia.

The boxer’s only other son, Jake LaMotta Jr., died of cancer at 51 in February.

Joe, president of LaMotta Foods Inc., was headed to Geneva to promote the new LaMotta Tomatta Sauce.

Miscellany

Billy Hunter, the executive director of the NBA players’ union, and NBA Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik were the only witnesses during the arbitration hearing in New York on whether players with guaranteed contracts should be paid during the current lockout by owners.

The lockout is in its third month, the sides having met for formal bargaining only once since July 1.

Bishop Amat High of La Puente traveled to Illinois for its football season opener and defeated Naperville Central, 28-7.

Running back Michael Wagner, who had 21 carries for 105 yards, scored on runs of 16 and 13 yards for Bishop Amat, and quarterback Chris Rix passed to Dennis Wyrick on a 67-yard touchdown pass play.

Bishop Amat played Naperville Central because it couldn’t find a Southern California school to fill out its 11-game schedule.

The top-ranked Long Beach State women’s volleyball team improved to 3-0 by defeating California, 15-2, 15-8, 15-0, before a crowd of 2,669 at the Pyramid.

Names in the News

Olympic swimming champion Michelle Smith has appealed her four-year suspension for tampering with a drug test. The filing was made with the International Court of Arbitration for Sport at Lausanne, Switzerland.

If Smith succeeds in overturning the ban imposed by swimming’s world governing body, FINA, she can be swimming competitively by Christmas. CAS spokesman Matthieu Reeb said it was the organization’s policy to settle disputes within four months.

Jockey Mike Smith, who suffered a broken back in a spill during Monday’s ninth race at Saratoga, went home from the hospital in Albany, N.Y., in a full body cast.

Smith, 33, was Saratoga’s leading jockey this year and rode Coronado’s Quest to victory in the Travers Stakes last Saturday. He will not race for at least three months, meaning he will miss the Breeders’ Cup in November at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.