6B THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2006
RACING
SPORTS
IRL race fan Tim Mincey from West Palm Beach, Fla., displays a sign honoring Paul Dana who was killed at the Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Fla., Sunday, while driving practice laps for the Toyota Indy 300 auto race.
J. Pat Carter/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
200-mph crash kills IRL driver
BY MIKE HARRIS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The scarred, twisted remains of Paul Dana's No. 17 Panoz race car lay under a tarp Monday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the biggest clue in a mystery that may never be solved.
Dana died Sunday after sustaining what officials described as "multiple trauma injuries" in a two-car crash during a warmup for the season-opening IRL IndyCar Series race at Homestead.
The league plans to look into the possible causes, but the only thing the computers in Dana's car or the videotape of the crash
— is likely to tell them is that the rookie driver, with all of three IRL races under his belt, kept his foot on the gas until a few tents of a second before impact.
As for why, well — the only person who could likely have answered that question was Dana himself.
Ed Carpenter's spinning car, which had crashed seconds earlier and glanced off a concrete wall, had nearly come to a halt when Dana suddenly appeared, flying off turn two on the 1.5-mile oval.
It appeared Dana never slowed, bearing down like a 200-mph missile — two hours later, he was pronounced dead. While Dana said he was 30 and listed a 1975 birthday in media guides, there were reports that he was actually 32 and born two years earlier.
The wreck left everyone wondering whether Dana even saw the caution lights flashing along the speedway walls, or heard the words of his spotter, who team officials say tried to warn of the danger ahead.
For years, drivers with little experience — and sometimes little talent — have managed to find rides at the top level of open-wheel racing by bringing family money or a sponsor to the table. And in a sport where big dollar sponsors are few and far between these days, buying a ride has become just another part of the game.
Dana wasn't rich, but he found a way to live his dream of racing cars. He worked at a variety of jobs, including mechanic, racing instructor and marketing representative to pay his way up the racing ladder.
He even wrote about auto racing for several national magazines, including Autoweek and Sports Illustrated.
But Dana, a savvy and glib young man who didn't get serious about racing until he was 20, had found sponsorship in Team Ethanol that he could bring to a team. That's how he got his ride with Rahal Letterman Racing, one of the top teams in the IRL.
He did have some success in the Indy Pro Series, the steppingstone series to IndyCar, winning one pole and one race and finishing second in the championship in 2004. But anybody in open-wheel racing will tell you it's a big step up from Indy Pro to IndyCar.
Working with Team Ethanol, Dana got an IndyCar ride in 2005 with Hemelgarn Racing.
At the Homestead opener, he finished a career-best 10th.
Unlike the death of much-beloved NASCAR superstar Dale Earnhardt in the 2001 Daytona 500, Dana's tragic death did not ignite national mourning or a series of safety-related changes.
Stripper claims rape by three Duke athletes
CRIME
BY ERMER P. DALLEY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY EMERY P. DALESIO
DURHAM, N.C. — Amid days of campus protests, Duke University officials and police awaited DNA test results on 46 members of the school's highly ranked lacrosse team Tuesday after an exotic dancer claimed she was raped by some of the players.
The case has roiled the campus, raised racial tensions and heightened antagonism between the affluent students at Duke, which costs about $43,000 a year, and the city of Durham, which has a large population of poor people and is about evenly divided between white and black.
"For even a college like Duke, which is in the news a lot, it's not the way you want to be known," said Philip Christoff, a 20-year-old freshman.
The rape was reported two weeks ago. A woman told police she and another dancer were hired to perform at a March
13 private party at a home just off campus. The dancer, a student at North Carolina Central University, told police she was pulled into a bathroom, beaten, choked and raped by three men.
No one has been charged.
Armed with
bers are standing together and refusing to talk with investigators, and he warned he may bring aiding-and-abetting charges against some of the players.
Armed with a judge's order police took DNA samplers with a cheek swab from 46 of the lacrosse team's 47 players last week The 47th player the only black member of the
The alleged victim is black,
which has proved a source
needed to have the information about who will be charged. I feel pretty confident that a rape occurred."
team, did not have to provide DNA because the dancer said her attackers were white.
"I needed to have the information about who will be charged," said District Attorney Mike Nifong said. "I feel pretty confident that a rape occurred."
Mike Nifong District Attorney
Nifong said the team mem
"The circumstances of the rape indicated a deep racial motivation for some of the things that were done," Nifong said. "It makes a crime that is
of tension on campus.
by its nature one of the most offensive and invasive even more so."
Angry over the team members' silence and the university's handling of the case, Durham residents have demonstrated on and off campus in the past few days. They rallied outside the house where the alleged attack
occurred, and gathered outside of Duke provost Peter Lange's home, where they banged on pots and pans until he emerged to answer questions.
Lange said Monday that he believes "the students would be well-advised to come forward. They have chosen not to."
The district attorney said he has asked for the state crime lab to expedite DNA testing since the semester at Duke ends in about six weeks, after which he fears students will scatter from Duke's campus.
A lawyer representing several lacrosse team members did not immediately return calls Tuesday.
The university's athletic director forced the team to forfeit two games because of underage drinking and the hiring of dancers at the party. The losses gave Duke, considered a national title contender before the season began, a 6-4 record with five regular-season games to go.
Even the upper deck needs spring cleaning
Willie Thomas, Jr. gives a spring cleaning to the seats in the upper deck at Jacobs Field in Cleveland. Grounds crew, painters and maintenance workers are scurrying up the stadium for the Cleveland Indians home opener against the Minnesota Twins April 7.
Chuck Crow/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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