Police have found the NASCAR race car stolen from a hotel parking lot near Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Team XTREME said the car was discovered early Saturday northwest of Atlanta in Gwinnett County, about 20 miles away from where it was taken. The team tweeted a pictured of team owner John Cohen standing in front of the No. 44 Chevrolet, which was ditched in a wooded area near Loganville, Ga.
Morrow police Detective Sgt. Larry Oglesby, leading the investigation in the south Atlanta suburb, confirmed to The Associated Press that the car was recovered. Valued at $250,000, the high-powered machine appears undamaged.
The discovery came too late to help the team this weekend. It was forced to withdraw from today's Atlanta race.
The race car, along with the pickup and trailer that were hauling it, were taken just a few hours before Travis Kvapil was to run in qualifying. Team spokesman Amanda Ebersole said police did not recover the other contents of the trailer, which included a spare engine valued at $100,000 and racing equipment valued at $17,500.
Still, the recovery of the car will help the low-budget team go forward with its plans to race at Las Vegas next weekend.
"I've been doing this since 1979," crew chief Peter Sospenzo said. "I've probably been to 1,200 hotels and 1,200 race tracks. Never once has this happened. It's crazy. But there's a first for everything, I guess."
Shovel time
Northern Iowa basketball Coach Ben Jacobson gained a life-long fan last week when he stopped to help a 17-year-old high school student dislodge her car that was stuck in a snow bank.
Twenty minutes after her car slid off the road, Abby Young admitted she was starting to become concerned. Her car was stuck. Her phone was dead. and the few drivers who passes her whizzed by without stopping.
"I tried to shovel my car out of the snow, but I couldn't get it out," the senior at Cedar Falls High School said. "I was starting to get worried I was going to be there a very long time."
Jacobson, however, did stop and the coach of the nation's 10th-ranked college basketball team alternated between shoveling snow away from the tires and trying to drive Young's car to freedom.
"It was very nice of him," Young said. "I know he has a lot going on, but he took the time to come and help when he didn't have to."
He's dead, Jim
From RJ Currie of sportsdeke.com:
"Leonard Nimoy has died. Mr. Spock first appeared in September, 1966, the start of the Toronto Maple Leafs last championship season. Since then, expecting the Leafs to win the Stanley Cup has not been logical."
Sports quiz
What golfer won nine tournaments during her 1978 rookie year on the LPGA Tour?
Sports answer
Nancy Lopez
TIM COOPER
Sports on 03/01/2015