Auto racing
NEWMAN WINS POLE: Ryan Newman must be close to perfect the rest of the way to win the Nextel Cup championship, and he took a positive step by grabbing the pole Friday at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va.
"It's a good start to the entire weekend," said Newman, ninth among 10 drivers and 271 points behind series leader Kurt Busch halfway through NASCAR's 10-race playoff.
Newman needs outstanding finishes in the final five races, and quite a bit of good luck. The narrow half-mile oval at Martinsville — where bunched fields frequently lead to crashes — might be a good place to find a little good fortune.
Like six of the other drivers in the title chase, Newman can't contend without bad finishes by Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon, who have been turning the competition into a three-way battle.
NO. 7 FOR TRUEX: At Memphis, Tenn., NASCAR Busch series points leader Martin Truex Jr. won his seventh pole of the season in qualifying Friday at Memphis Motorsports Park. Truex, 144 points ahead of Kyle Busch, sped around the three-quarter-mile oval in a Chevrolet at 120.198 mph. But that lap — just off Jeff Green's 4-year-old qualifying record of 120.267 — was achieved only after some hard work. Truex, a five-time winner on the circuit this season, had the second-fastest lap in practice behind Ron Hornaday. But adjustments before qualifying gave Truex the top spot for today's Sam's Town 250.
"We didn't have the best car when we started, and we worked real hard and figured out a way to make our car faster than everybody else's," Truex said
College football
BUCKEYE RB SUSPENDED: Ohio State tailback Lydell Ross was suspended for Saturday's game against Indiana by coach Jim Tressel for undisclosed reasons. The suspension was announced Friday in a news release from the university. Sports information director Steve Snapp declined comment, and an e-mail message to Ross was not immediately returned. Ohio State (3-3, 0-3) is trying to avoid its first 0-4 start in the Big Ten since 1922. The Buckeyes have lost three straight. Ross has started all six games, rushing for 343 yards with three touchdowns.
Tennis
SHARAPOVA ADVANCES: Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova beat former winner Venus Williams 6-3, 6-4 in the Swisscom Challenge quarterfinals on Friday and extended her winning streak to 11 matches. Fourth-seeded Sharapova will continue her quest to win three successive titles when she meets No. 3 Elena Dementieva in an all-Russian semifinal today. The seventh-seeded Williams, who won the tournament in 1999, broke Sharapova in the opening game of the match. The 17-year-old broke Williams twice, however, to come back and win the first set.