Roush won’t be grounded

Auto racing: NASCAR team owner Jack Roush was back at the racetrack Friday, having permanently lost vision in his left eye but otherwise feeling lucky to survive yet another plane crash.

And yes, he expects to fly again.

Roush, who crashed his jet just over two weeks ago while trying to land at an air show in Wisconsin, said he ruptured his left eyeball in the crash and doesn’t expect to ever be able to see out of it again.

“Everything will come back, except for the eye,” he told reporters at Michigan International Speedway. Roush then joked that he uses his right eye to examine spark plugs anyway.

In addition to his eye injury, Roush said he broke his jaw and suffered a compression fracture in his back.

Roush, an aviation buff who survived another crash in 2002, praised the plane’s safety characteristics and acknowledged his remarkable good luck.

“I’ve been extremely lucky to have been able to survive,” Roush said. “I feel in some ways unworthy. I don’t know that I’ve done enough yet for the chances I’ve had.”

Associated Press

Verlin gets new deal from UI

Basketball: Don Verlin, 32-32 in two years at Idaho men’s basketball coach, has a new five-year contract that will keep him in Moscow through the 2014-15 season.

The deal was approved this week by the State Board of Education and will pay Verlin an escalating base salary from $132,808 this season to $164,840 in 2014-15. He’ll also get $60,000 per year in media payments, plus other incentives.

He’s gearing up for big payoff

Cycling: The bicycle had two flat tires, but Greg Estes figured the $5 asking price still made it a great bargain at a yard sale. Little did he know just how great.

Estes checked on the bike’s origin after buying it in Owenton, Ky., this month. He was shocked to learn it may be worth as much as $8,000 and was custom built for cycling star Floyd Landis, who used it in the 2007 Leadville 100, a mountain bike race in Colorado.

Landis crashed but finished second in that race, which was shortly after his victory in the 2006 Tour de France, a win since vacated due to doping charges.

A sticker on the bike revealed to Estes it was custom built by Cyco-Path Bicycles out of Temecula, Calif., and the store told Estes it was built for Landis.

The seller told Estes her family found it on the side of an interstate highway in Kentucky.

Associated Press