Fast Break

Auto Racing

Hornish will jump to NASCAR

Six times Sam Hornish Jr. has tried to make it into NASCAR’s main event, and every time he’s been sent home.

The failure has only made him want it more.

The three-time Indy Car Series champion is moving to NASCAR in 2008, joining the mass exodus of open-wheel stars fleeing to America’s most popular racing series. He told the Associated Press he will drive the No. 77 Dodge next season for Penske Racing with Mobil 1 as the sponsor.

“I’ve tried to qualify for these Cup races, and it’s kind of lit a little bit of fire in me to see if we can’t get to the point where I am competitive,” said Hornish, who will try again to make his Nextel Cup debut this weekend at Phoenix International Raceway.

Cross country

Area teams in Nike qualifying

Washington state champion cross country runners from North Central and Mead will vie for national stature during this weekend’s Nike Team Nationals qualifying Northwest Regional meet in Boise.

This is the fourth year for the Nike Team Nationals in Portland but the first year of the regional qualifying concept. Each region will get two automatic team berths to nationals on Dec. 1.

The Northwest Regional race for boys is 2:50 p.m. at Eagle Island State Park. Central Valley is also in the championship race. Mt. Spokane RC is entered in the girls championship race.

Baseball

Base coaches to protect heads

Baseball wants to prevent another tragic accident like the one that killed Mike Coolbaugh.

General managers decided Thursday that base coaches will wear some sort of head protection next season, a move that came four months after Coolbaugh was struck in the neck by a line drive during a minor league game.

Coolbaugh, a former major league player, was a coach for the Colorado Rockies’ Double-A team in Tulsa when he died July 22 after being hit by a liner.

Basketball

Seattle gets Stern warning

NBA commissioner David Stern warned Thursday that if the SuperSonics leave Seattle he sees no way the league would ever return to the city.

“I’d love to find a way to keep the team there,” he said, “because if the team moves, there’s not going to be another team there, not in any conceivable future plan that I could envision.”

Stern criticized the city of Seattle and the legislature for how they’ve handled the issue of funding a replacement for KeyArena.