MOTOR SPORTS
Ragan to drive for Busch
David Ragan will drive Kyle Busch's car in the Sprint Cup Series this weekend at Atlanta, while 18-year-old Erik Jones will drive Busch's car in the Xfinity Series. Busch broke his right leg and left foot when he crashed head-on into a concrete wall Saturday at Daytona International Speedway. He left the Florida hospital on Tuesday and was transferred to one in Charlotte for further treatment. Ragan will drive the No. 18 Toyota for at least the next several weeks. The move was accommodated by Front Row Motorsports, the team Ragan currently drives for, and sponsor CSX. Jones will drive the No. 54 Toyota in Saturday's race. Busch was driving the No. 54 in the Xfinity Series opener when he was injured. Joe Gibbs Racing said additional lineup changes to the Xfinity car will be made moving forward. Jones currently runs a full season in the Truck Series for Kyle Busch Motorsports and a partial Xfinity schedule for JGR in the No. 20.
• International Speedway is developing a plan for the installation of additional SAFER barriers at Daytona and Talladega, and will review the safety standards at its other racetracks. The renewed focus comes three days after NASCAR star Kyle Busch broke his right leg and left foot in a crash into a concrete wall at Daytona. Busch left a Daytona Beach, Florida, hospital on Tuesday and was transferred to another facility in North Carolina for further treatment. Busch was injured Saturday in the season-opening Xfinity Series race when his car hit an interior wall that did not have a Steel and Foam Energy Reduction barrier. After his accident, Daytona president Joie Chitwood III vowed to cover every inch of the speedway with SAFER barriers. Daytona is owned by ISC, the sister company of NASCAR.
TENNIS
Davis Cup teams named
Andy Murray will return to his native Scotland next week to lead Britain against the United States in the first round of the Davis Cup. Murray and his brother, Jamie, will face the Americans on March 6-8 on an indoor hard court at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow. James Ward and Dominic Inglot rounded out the team named by captain Leon Smith on Tuesday. U.S. captain Jim Courier named a team that featured John Isner and Donald Young in singles and brothers Bob and Mike Bryan in the doubles. The third-ranked Murray returns to play in Scotland for the first time since winning Wimbledon in 2013. Murray led Britain to a 3-1 win over the U.S. in the first round of the World Group last year in San Diego. Murray could team up in doubles against the Bryan brothers with his own brother, who returns to Davis Cup play for the first time since 2011. The Bryan brothers, the world's top-ranked doubles pair, are 22-4 together in Davis Cup play. The 20th-ranked Isner will be competing in his 10th Davis Cup tie. He was chosen for last year's matches against Britain but was replaced by Young after spraining his right ankle. The U.S. leads 11-8 overall against Britain in the oldest rivalry in Davis Cup history, dating to the first competition in 1900.
• Playing for the first time since winning the Australian Open, Novak Djokovic came through with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Vasek Pospisil on Tuesday in the first round of the Dubai Tennis Championships. The top-ranked Djokovic won his fifth title in Melbourne at the beginning of the month. Also, third-seeded Andy Murray was given a workout by Gilles Muller of Luxembourg before securing a 6-4, 7-5 win, and fourth-seeded Tomas Berdych, a finalist at Dubai the last two years, beat Jeremy Chardy of France 7-6 (2), 6-4. Other winners included Marcos Baghdatis, sixth-seeded Feliciano Lopez, seventh-seeded Roberto Bautista Agut, Sergiy Stakjovsky and Simone Bolelli.
• Sixth-seeded Andrea Petkovic advanced to the second round of the Qatar Open with a 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-2 win over Belgian qualifier Kirsten Flipkens on Tuesday in Doha, Qatar. Flipkens, who beat Petkovic in the second round at New Haven last August, showed a good touch in the first set -- only to crumble in the second as Petkovic opened up a 4-0 lead. The 10th-ranked Petkovic was in total control of the third set, with the German winning four games in a row to seal the contest. Carla Suarez Navarro advanced after fellow Spaniard Garbine Muguruza retired due to a viral illness, with Navarro leading 6-5 after the first set. Jelena Jankovic thrashed China's lucky loser Zheng Saisai 6-0, 6-2, while Karolina Pliskova beat Swiss qualifier Stefanie Voegele 7-6 (4), 6-4.
FOOTBALL
DE Kiwanuka released
The New York Giants released veteran defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka on Tuesday in a move that clears about $4.8 million of space under the NFL salary cap. The NFL Players Association estimates the new salary cap will rise to $143 million. Cutting Kiwanuka's contract, which had a year to run at $4.775 million, increased the Giants' cap space to nearly $23 million. A big chunk of the total will likely go to either signing unrestricted defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul to a long-term deal or placing the nearly $15 million franchise tag on him. Kiwanuka's release was expected since he's been injury-prone and ineffective the past few seasons. He took a pay cut last year from $4 million to $2.25 million to stay with the team, which finished 6-10. The Giants' first-round pick in 2006 spent the final five games this past season on injured reserve with a knee injury, finishing with 28 tackles and 2½ sacks. He played through numerous aches and pains in the three seasons since a severe neck injury limited him to three games in 2010. He started games at both defensive end and linebacker over his nine-year career.
• Steve Bisciotti had his "worst year" as owner of the Baltimore Ravens in 2014 because of off-the-field issues, most notably the arrest and subsequent release of running back Ray Rice. Although the Ravens went 10-6 and won a playoff game, Bisciotti looks back at the season with disdain. Reflecting on Tuesday, Bisciotti said, "It was my worst year as an owner. I had 14 good years and then I had an absolutely crappy year." Five Ravens were arrested during the past offseason, including Rice, who was charged with assault in February after punching his then-fiancee in an elevator. Rice was released by the Ravens after a video of the assault became public. "Things come in waves and we certainly took a crash here last year," Bisciotti said.
SOCCER
Cup set for '22 year end
The World Cup in Qatar keeps provoking outrage and breaking taboos. Seven years before the 2022 tournament kicks off in the wealthy emirate, FIFA recommended a break with soccer tradition on Tuesday -- moving its marquee tournament to November and December instead of the usual June-July time slot. A FIFA task force meeting in Doha agreed that playing in the cooler months at the end of the year would protect players and fans from 40-degree C (104-degree F) heat in Qatar's summer. But the decision angered many in Europe because highly profitable leagues will be shut down for several weeks in the middle of their seasons. "We expect the clubs to be compensated for the damage that a final decision would cause," European Club Association chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, a former Germany great, said in a statement. The EPFL, a group representing Europe's top leagues, said the World Cup will cause "great damage" to domestic competitions when slotted into the broader Nov. 19-Dec. 23 period suggested by FIFA. Next month's final approval for the switched dates seems to be a formality from a FIFA executive committee chaired by President Sepp Blatter, who has long insisted November-December is the only realistic option for the tournament. Some of those same officials surprisingly chose Qatar in December 2010 despite the gas-rich country's lack of soccer tradition and vote-rigging claims implicating several voters and bid candidates. A FIFA investigation into those allegations was closed only two months ago, concluding that wrongdoing did not influence the victories for Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022.
Sports on 02/25/2015