Fast Break
Soccer
Portland lands MLS team
Portland will join Major League Soccer in 2011 along with Vancouver, British Columbia, as the league expands to 18 teams.
The Seattle Sounders became the 15th team Thursday, beating the New York Reds Bulls 3-0 in their opener. The Philadelphia area was awarded a 2010 expansion team last year, and Vancouver on Wednesday was picked to become MLS’s second Canadian team, following Toronto.
Portland’s team will be known as the Timbers, keeping the same name as the city’s United Soccer Leagues franchise. The MLS team will have the same owner, Merritt Paulson, the 36-year-old son of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (in photo).
“Portland has the most passionate soccer fans in the country, as we can see today,” Paulson told a chanting, cheering crowd of fans decked out in the Timbers’ bright green.
The Timbers will also keep their downtown home at PGE Park, but will no longer share it with the Triple-A Portland Beavers baseball team, which Paulson also owns.
Portland city officials approved a financing deal last week that would renovate PGE Park for soccer and build a new ballpark for the Beavers. The city still must come up with a plan to raise $15 million of an estimated $89 million needed for the project.
Auto racing
Martin wins another pole
Mark Martin went seven years without winning a pole. Now he has two in a row.
Martin has won the pole at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. He turned a lap at 125.773 mph to earn the top starting spot for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race.
It marks the first time in 20 years that Martin has won consecutive poles. He did it at Darlington and Bristol in 1989.
The 50-year-old driver has done it this year at Atlanta two weeks ago, and now Bristol.
Ryan Newman qualified second for Sunday’s race and three-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson was third. Greg Biffle and Kasey Kahne round out the top five.
Jeremy Mayfield and Scott Riggs are the two drivers who failed to qualify. Both had raced their way into the season-opening Daytona 500.