Son of A.J. Foyt Will Drive for Dad

Former Indianapolis 500 winner A.J. Foyt will field a Busch Grand National team next season with his 23-year-old son as the driver.

Larry Foyt will run the full Busch schedule next season, the two said Sunday at Concord, N.C.

“I think he’s is ready for the next level,” A.J. Foyt said. “I am very proud of Larry and very excited about this opportunity for him.”

Foyt is buying the team from Winston Cup driver Dale Earnhardt, who currently owns the Busch team for which Ron Hornaday drives. Earnhardt is moving out of the Busch series next season so he can field three Winston Cup teams.

Larry Foyt is currently running in the American Speed Assn. series this season and is a former Formula 2000 and go-cart driver. He won his first ASA pole last month at Winchester, Ind., breaking a 20-year-old track record set by Mark Martin.

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Top-fuel driver Larry Dixon was in satisfactory condition after crashing in Sunday’s NHRA race at Memphis (Tenn.) Motorsports Park.

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Penske South bought out Michael Kranefuss’ 50% share of the Winston Cup team that fields the No. 12 Fords for Jeremy Mayfield.

“Jeremy Mayfield will continue as the driver of the team’s No. 12 Ford Taurus, with Michael Kranefuss continuing as a member of the team for the remainder of the NASCAR Winston Cup season,” Penske Racing announced.

Golf

Lee Westwood dethroned Colin Montgomerie in the World Match Play Championship at Virginia Water, England.

The sudden-death victory was Westwood’s sixth win on the European Tour this season. He made a 20-foot birdie putt on the second hole of a playoff to defeat Montgomerie in a tournament that was carried over a day because of heavy rain.

Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo and Montgomerie are the only others to have won six European tour events in a season.

Former PGA champion Wayne Grady made an emergency landing at Maroochydore, Australia, after the six-seat Beechcraft Bonanza airplane he was flying experienced landing-gear problems. One of his two passengers manually wound down the landing gear, and the plane landed safely at Sunshine Coast airport. No one was injured.

“If I had been on my own I would have had to put it in on its belly,” Grady told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. “It’s my plane. I don’t know what happened. It’s the first time these two boys have been up with me. I assume it will be the last time too.”

Miscellany

Kevan Gosper, Australia’s top Olympic official, has withdrawn as a candidate to succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch as president of the International Olympic Committee. The 66-year-old IOC vice president said he felt “totally fulfilled” by his Olympic experience, as an athlete in the 1956 Games and an organizer of the Sydney Games. He said he would have had to spend much of the year overseas lobbying support and added that he will be able to spend more time with his family. Gosper’s announcement appears to leave three contenders--Dick Pound of Canada, Jacques Rogge of Belgium and Kim Un Yong of South Korea.

U.S. Open tennis champion Marat Safin of Russia was upset by unseeded Nicolas Escude of France, 5-7, 6-3, 7-6 (5), in the first round of the CA Trophy tournament at Vienna, Austria. Escude outdueled the top-seeded Safin in a 2-hour 28-minute match. Max Mirnyi of Belarus defeated Olympic bronze medalist Arnaud Di Pasquale of France, 7-5, 6-3, and Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands defeated seventh-seeded Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain, 6-4, 6-4.

Jelena Dokic of Australia defeated Emmanuelle Gagliardi of Switzerland, 6-3, 6-0, to set up a second-round match with Martina Hingis of Switzerland in the Swisscom Challenge at Zurich, Switzerland.

Former University of Michigan basketball player Kevin Gaines pleaded guilty in Taylor, Mich., to having an unlawful blood alcohol level under a plea agreement that involved two current players. Michigan players Avery Queen and Bernard Robinson Jr., both 19, pleaded guilty to being minors possessing alcohol.

Defender Martin Keown took over as captain of England’s soccer team two days before a critical World Cup qualifying match against Finland at Helsinki. Tony Adams, the longtime captain of the English national squad, was sidelined by back problems.