Waltrip’s Streak to Continue

Michael Waltrip’s consecutive starts streak will not come to an end thanks to a little help from Derrike Cope.

Waltrip failed to qualify for today’s Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., putting his streak of 261 starts in a row in jeopardy. But Cope, who did make the field, sold Waltrip his Dodge so that Waltrip could be in the race.

Waltrip will transfer his No. 55 and NAPA sponsorship onto the car for today’s NASCAR Nextel Cup race. He had not missed a race since Phoenix in October 1998.

“You can look at it as, ‘Michael bought Derrike’s ride,’ but that’s not the case. That’s not how it worked,” Waltrip said. “What happened was we said, ‘If you would be willing for Michael to drive, we’ll sponsor the car and that way you can go to Dover and Pocono and on down the road and have a better chance of success going forward.’ ”

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Michael Schumacher was stripped of the pole position at the Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo after stewards ruled he deliberately stopped his car on the track during Saturday’s qualifying.

The seven-time world champion will start from the back of the pack in today’s race, and Fernando Alonso will start from the pole. Mark Webber moved up to second. After setting the fastest lap of 1 minute 13.898 seconds early in the final section of qualifying, Schumacher appeared to lose control of his Ferrari on his final lap and stalled out on the last turn.

Others, including defending world champion Alonso, were behind him trying to set a fastest lap. Alonso had looked as though he was about to do it, but had to slow down to avoid Schumacher’s car and was second.

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Ron Hornaday Jr. won the City of Mansfield 250 for his Craftsman Truck Series-record 28th career victory, and former baseball star Mike Greenwell finished 26th in his NASCAR debut at Mansfield, Ohio.

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Carl Edwards grabbed the lead away from Casey Mears on a restart with six laps to go and pulled away to win the Busch Series race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.

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Top Fuel points leader Melanie Troxel and Pro Stock driver Erica Enders led qualifying for the O’Reilly Summer Nationals at Topeka, Kan., the first time two female drivers have been No. 1 qualifiers in NHRA history.