Auto Racing
Red-hot Logano wins pole at Martinsville Speedway
MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Joey Logano won the pole at Martinsville Speedway to set up a shot at his fourth consecutive win.
Logano turned a lap at 98.548 in Friday qualifying to earn the top starting spot. He will head into Sunday’s race coming off three consecutive wins – a sweep of the second round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.
Should Logano win Sunday, he’ll be the first driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2007 to win four consecutive races.
Martin Truex Jr. qualified second and was followed by non-Chase drivers AJ Allmendinger and Jamie McMurray.
Jeff Gordon will try to win his ninth career race at Martinsville from the fifth starting spot.
College Football
USC’s Haden leaves playoff committee, cites health
IRVING, Texas – Southern California athletic director Pat Haden stepped down from the College Football Playoff committee after his doctors advised him to cut back on travel.
College Football Playoff Executive Director Bill Hancock announced Friday that Haden was leaving the committee and would not be replaced. The committee will have 12 members for the rest of the season.
The committee is scheduled to meet in North Texas this weekend to produce its first rankings of the season. The playoff rankings will be released Tuesday.
Golf
Back on the table: Woods has another procedure
JUPITER, Fla. – Tiger Woods said he had a follow-up procedure on his back to relieve discomfort.
Charles Rich, the neurosurgeon who performed the procedure Wednesday in Utah, said on Woods’ website that he was doing well and a full recovery was expected. He did not say what the procedure involved.
Woods first had a microdiscectomy a week before the 2014 Masters that kept him out three months. He later said he returned too early. He had another microdiscectomy Sept. 16 that ended his year.
Woods said on his website that “it’s one of those things that had to be done.” There was no timetable on his return.
NFL
Police report: ex-Bear Ratliff made threats
LAKE FOREST, Ill. – A police report says former Bears defensive lineman Jeremiah Ratliff threatened staff at team headquarters in suburban Chicago, saying he “felt like killing everybody in the building.”
The Lake Forest police report released Friday says an officer responded when someone at Halas Hall called police Oct. 21 to report Ratliff was “very angry and irrational.” The Bears cut Ratliff on Oct. 22, the day after Ratliff was seen having an animated discussion with general manager Ryan Pace in a parking lot outside of the facility.
The report says Ratliff twice parked outside Bears property and walked past security. It says Ratliff said, “I am the devil,” and he wished staff member’s children would die.
Pierre-Paul never had doubts about return to Giants
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul said he never worried about his future in football after a July 4 fireworks accident cost him his right index finger.
In his first comments since the mishap, Pierre-Paul recalled his time in a Florida hospital with a mangled hand and burns covering his arm.
He says that even as the fireworks blew up he wasn’t frightened. This was the seventh year he put on a pyrotechnics display for the neighborhood children.
Pierre-Paul signed an incentive-driven, $8.7 million contract Tuesday and took part in contact work the next day.
Associated Press
