Harvick has just enough left in the tank to win

It would be hard to blame Kevin Harvick if he wanted the NASCAR Busch Series season to go on forever.

Harvick dominated the field again Saturday in the O’Reilly Challenge 300 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, winning for the second week in a row and third time in his last four starts. It was the ninth Busch victory of what is already a championship season for the Nextel Cup driver.

Harvick, after being told by his team he was going to be close on gas, did run out -- at the finish.

With the title determined last month in Charlotte, most of the pre-race attention was on newcomer Juan Pablo Montoya, starting only his second NASCAR race in preparation for a full-time Cup ride next season.

The former Champ Car and Formula One driver had a difficult but educational day on the 1.5-mile Texas oval.

He qualified 10th but started near the rear of the 43-car field after having to make a stop during the pace laps. When the race began, he moved steadily through the pack and was up to 25th before slipping up the banking and bouncing hard off the wall.

That sent Montoya to the pits for repairs and left him 41st, two laps off the pace. Driving a damaged car that couldn’t keep up with the leaders, Montoya stayed on the track to the end, finishing 28th -- three laps behind Harvick.

Harvick beat Tony Stewart to the finish by 0.862 seconds -- about five car-lengths. Jeff Burton was third. Cup drivers have won 31 of 33 Busch races.

Harvick enters today’s Dickies 500 sixth in the Cup points and with an outside chance to become the first driver to win NASCAR’s top two titles in the same season.

TENNIS

Davydenko, Hrbaty

to meet in Paris final

Nikolay Davydenko advanced to his seventh final of the season at the Paris Masters by defeating Tommy Robredo, 6-3, 5-7, 6-2.

Davydenko will meet 17th-seeded Dominik Hrbaty, who advanced because 10th-seeded Tommy Haas retired with gastroenteritis while trailing, 6-4, 1-0.

Haas can no longer qualify for the season-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai. He needed to win the Paris Masters to overtake James Blake, who takes the eighth and final spot.

Kim Clijsters beat Vera Zvonareva, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, to advance to the final of the Gaz de France at Hasselt, Belgium.

The top-seeded Clijsters, in her comeback tournament at home after being sidelined 10 weeks because of a wrist injury, will defend her title against first-time finalist Kaia Kanepi, who beat Michaella Krajicek, 6-4, 6-4.

Second-seeded Marion Bartoli defeated Lilia Osterloh, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1, and eighth-seeded Olga Poutchkova beat fourth-seeded Severine Bremond, 2-6, 6-0, 7-5, to advance to the final of the Bell Challenge at Quebec City.

BASEBALL

Sosa talks about

return to big leagues

Sammy Sosa, 12 home runs shy of 600, said he wants to return to the big leagues in 2007 after taking a year off and contemplating retirement.

“I feel good physically, and after a year of resting we are optimistic about making a decision soon about returning to baseball,” the Dominican slugger told the Associated Press.

Sosa, 37, did not play this season after rejecting a non-guaranteed offer of $500,000 from the Washington Nationals.

Ryan Howard hit two home runs and Tadahito Iguchi drove in two runs with a double as the Major League All-Stars defeated the stars of Japanese baseball, 8-6, for a 2-0 lead in a five-game tour at Tokyo.

Howard, who led the majors with 58 homers for the Philadelphia Phillies, gave the major leaguers a 5-2 lead in the top of the third inning with a towering two-run homer to center field at Tokyo Dome.

MISCELLANY

Brazil sweeps past

U.S. in volleyball

Tournament favorite Brazil beat the United States in straight sets to continue its unbeaten run at the women’s world volleyball championships in Tokyo.

The Brazilians, who clinched their fourth successive World Grand Prix in September, won, 25-23, 25-21, 25-13, to hand the sixth-ranked United States its first defeat of the tournament.

Shannon Briggs won the World Boxing Organization heavyweight title, stopping Sergei Liakhovich with a second left in the 12th round at Phoenix. Briggs improved to 48-4-1. Liakhovich is 23-2.

The football team at Willows High, where quarterback Brian Parks, the son of Coach Curtis Parks, collapsed and died of cardiac dysrhythmia during a preseason practice Aug. 21, has qualified for the Northern Section’s Division III playoffs, which begin Thursday.

Willows lost its final Greater Mountain Valley League game of the regular season to visiting Live Oak, 35-7, Friday and finished with a 5-5 record. Willows will open the playoffs at Alturas Modoc.