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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2008
Bush applauds Giants
White House ceremony thanks Super Bowl winners
ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Bush takes a hand off from the Super Bowl XLII most valuable player, New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on Wednesday. The president honored the Super Bowl champion New York Giants football team
BY BEN FELLER ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Add this to the lore of championship ceremonies at the White House: President Bush believes in the Jessica Simpson jinx.
Bush, a Texas guy, lauded the New York Giants on Wednesday for winning the Super Bowl. Any football championship is big to the team and its fans, but this one was all the sweeter because it required a riveting, comeback effort against the New England Patriots, who were heavily favored and had not lost all year.
The president noted that along the way the Giants vanquished a team from his home state — the Dallas Cowboys. Many Dallas fans pinned their team's surprise playoff loss not on the Giants, but on Simpson. Seems the singer-actress was accused of being a distraction to her boyfriend, Dallas quarterback Tony Romo.
Apparently, Bush bought in.
"I'm a good sport," Bush said at the South Lawn ceremony. "We're going to send Jessica Simpson to the Democrat National Convention."
Everything is political.
The Giants beat the Patriots, 17-14, in what was considered one of the biggest upsets in pro-football history.
Even Bush, an early-tobed leader
With players and coaches gathered behind him on a comfortable spring day, Bush praised
latives. "It turned out to be really one of the great, legendary football games in our nation's history," he said Wednesday.
"I'm a good sport. We're going to send Jessica Simpson to the Democrat National Convention."
PRESIDENT BUSH
stayed up late that February night to watch the Giants pull ahead and hang on.
He didn't skimp on the super-
the team for its resilience. The president gave a detailed recap of the Giants' season, from the shaky start to the road victories to the final game of the regular season, when the Giants lost to the Patriots but gained confidence.
"You won the gratitude of
your fans. The New York Giants fans love these Giants," Bush said, drawing a burst of cheers from fans in Giant blue.
Behind Bush was Giants quarterback Eli Manning, who endured enormous scrutiny in New York and emerged as the Super Bowl's Most Valuable Player.
The president, as usual, also thanked the players for their off-the-field volunteer work.
The team visited wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center earlier in the day. Some star players said that experience moved them even more than hanging out with the president at the White House.
"To see their spirit, and the way they reacted to us, was just very special," said center Shaun O'Hara. "That's going to stick with me."
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>> AUTO RACING
Scott Speed greets fellow driver Dario Franchitti during qualifying for the ARCA RE/MAX Series 250 auto race at Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Ala., on Oct. 4, 2007. These days, Scott Speed has to be content in his down time playing video games in his motor coach or hanging out with other drivers. And that's just fine with the former Formula One driver.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former driver back on track Scott Speed stretches racing legs at Kansas Speedway
BY MIKE HARRIS ASSOCIATED PRESS
No more hanging out at the casino in Monte Carlo or attending parties hosted by a prince in Dubai.
"I'm having a lot of fun," Speed said last Friday, just hours before going out and getting his first ARCA stock car victory at Kansas Speedway.
These days, Scott Speed spends down time playing video games in his motor coach or hanging out with other drivers. And
"Even outside the racing, just being back in America in general has been super easy," he said. "Everyone's been very friendly. It's been great."
"He has an understanding and feel for tires and for the car and the truck."
to win, you had to keep moving up. So it been great."
Jay Frye, Red Bull Racing's new general manager, is impressed with what he has seen from Speed, and that's why the original plan to have Speed run only the full ARCA schedule this season has been amended to include 11 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races in a Bill Dacing Race
JAY FRYE Red Bull Racing's general manager
"It's actually helping me a lot. I'm learning quicker, I would say, than I have in my past when I really had to get results, you had
("Red Bull) have been so supportive that it's given me the opportunity to take my time and figure out what I have to do to get to Cup." Speed said. "I'm not worried about winning and impressing people right now, I'm just worried about learning.
This is "Stock Car Racing 101" for Speed, who was fired midway through last season by the Toro Rosso (Red Bull) Formula One team. But Red Bull, which helped him get to F1 as part of its driver development program, has stuck with the 25-year-old Californian, giving him the opportunity to work his way up to NASCAR's Sprint Cup series.
It's certainly a different route than that taken by Juan Pablo Montoya, another former Formula One driver, and Dario Franchitti and Sam Hornish Jr., open-wheel stars in America, who all went straight to NASCAR's top two series, Nationwide and Cup.
Toyota.
"He certainly has exceeded our expectations, so we've accelerated the process based on his performance to date," Frye said Tuesday in a phone interview.
He said the team was particularly impressed by a situation that came up in the truck race in March at Atlanta.
"Right off the bat in the truck race he had a tire going down," Frye said. "He immediately pitched and it was the right call. The tire wasn't going down, the wheel was loose.
"He has an understanding and feel for tires and for the car and the truck. He's very, very far along in that. ... His ability to communicate to the team what he is feeling is really, really good."
pit on the first drive-through.
Speed has
That's OK with Speed, though because this is all a big learning process.
"We certainly had a top-10 truck, and even with all the penalties, we still ended up coming back in that same spot," Speed said. "It was a lot of good practice passing trucks out there and running with the guys at the top end of the field."
The most recent of those came Saturday night in Kansas, where he learned some NASCAR lessons.
Beyond the less glamorous surroundings, the biggest difference for Speed is driving the bulky cars and trucks, compared to the small, agile F1 cars.
"I'm not worried about winning and impressing people right now, I'm just worried about learning."
Speed has raced in five ARCA events since late last year and three truck races so far this season, finishing 10th and eighth in the last two.
"But the racing's really good and I love it. I fell in love with it right away because it's really close, you move, hit some people right away, you rub on them and (it's) just good quality racing."
"I think to drive the car fast is quite a bit easier and less stressful because the cars react a lot slower and it brings back a lot of driver feel," Speed said. "You know, there's no on-board computer here. The only decisions being made on the car are based on what you feel. And you feel a lot because the car moves around a lot. ... It's very old school."
He was given back-to-back drive-through penalties, the first for passing on the wrong (left) side on a restart and the second for speeding upon entering the
SCOTT SPEED
Former Formula One driver
team.
Although he says the other F1 drivers were "cool." Speed has been impressed with how much help he has gotten from the drivers on the Red Bull
"Driver wise, Mike Skinner and Brian Vickers have been really helpful," he said. "I mean, over the top. They don't hold anything back. They give me everything I need."
If Speed continues his progress, Frye said he could make at least a couple of Cup starts in 2009. But Speed insists he isn't on a strict timetable. He's just happy to be racing.
MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL Former Cardinals pitcher struggles in rehab start
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — St. Louis Cardinals left-hander Mark Mulder gave up nine runs in three 2-3 innings Wednesday in his
fourth rehab start, an indication he's far from ready to return from September shoulder surgery.
Salt Lake City hit three home runs off Mulder, who allowed nine hits while taking the loss for Triple-A Memphis. Seven of the runs were earned.
Manager Tony La Russa said after Wednesday's victory against the Reds that he had seen the numbers but had not heard from club representatives who were watching the game.
"I've been saying there's no hurry for him," La Russa said. "He doesn't need to come back until he's ready."
Mulder allowed four runs in five innings in his previous rehab start while pitching for Double-A Springfield, but he had been optimistic while attributing three first-inning walks to getting accustomed to a higher arm angle than he was able to reach in previous starts.
Mulder has been limited to 20 major-league starts the last two seasons because of shoulder woes. He made only three starts last year, going 0-3 with a 12.27 ERA.
Associated Press