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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation uTop Indy teams have connections to Minnesota, Wisconsin
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.—The big-name, high-profile racers may well decide the 85th running of the Indianapolis 500, but last weekend’s qualifying already has assured that there will be a Minnesota-Wisconsin flair to the May 27 race.
It all starts with the most prominent teams in the conflicting race circuits — the Target-Ganassi team from CART and the Menard’s race team from the IRL. It goes on to Buddy Lazier and his brother, Jaques, and even includes a touch by pole-winner Scott Sharp, who raced in Minnesota and wishes there still were races that could bring him back to the state.
Buddy Lazier, winner of the first Indy 500 that excluded the CART racers, in 1996, is from Vail, Colo., as is his brother. But their connection to Minnesota is a real one.
“I grew up in Colorado,” said Buddy Lazier, who qualified on the inside of Row 4 at 224.190. “But my parents both grew up in Minnesota. My dad’s family was in Wayzata, on Lake Minnetonka, and my mom’s family lived in Forest Lake. So I went to Minnesota a lot to visit my grandparents.
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Anticipation returns to Indy
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.—The anticipation returned to Indianapolis 500 race qualifying Saturday, along with some startling results, not the least of which was Scott Sharp snatching the pole position with a four-lap qualifying run at 226.037 miles per hour.
“This is the greatest accomplishment of my racing career to date,” said Sharp, a former road-racer who could be the poster-boy for the Indy Racing League because he got a chance to drive at the sport’s major league level far sooner because of the IRL’s more grassroots approach. “This is my favorite race track, and the feeling I got every time I came around on my qualifying run was hard to describe.”
The Indianapolis 500 could regain a large chunk of the magic that dissipated when the IRL split apart from the dominant Championship Auto Racing Teams. But with several CART drivers and teams back at Indy to try to win the May 27 race, the 500 also has returned this year to two full weekends of qualifying, with the first day dedicated to trying to win the pole position. Pole-day once attracted 200,000 spectators to watch drivers go four laps, one at a time, and much of the drama returned Saturday, if not the big crowd.
CART’s strongest showings were by the Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi teams, but it was the “hometown” IRL pilots who stole the day. Sharp was joined on the front row by Team Menard’s ace Greg Ray, who waved off an early run and came back at the end of the day with a 225.194 mph bid to claim the second-fastest run of the day. Robby Gordon (224.994) and Mark Dismore (224.964) also squeezed in ahead of Team Penske’s Gil deFerran — last year’s CART champion — to take the third and fourth spots on the grid.
It was left to Eddie Cheever, a former Indy winner and IRL stalwart who had an engine breakdown and qualified his backup car far back in the field, to fire off the only real torpedo of the day, and, typically, Cheever did it with the artfulness of a surgeon. “Technically, the IRL has made some large improvements in the last year,” said Cheever. “I think the other series should concentrate on road-racing, but I think that if CART is coming to the 500 to battle the IRL, it’s a great story. I think that’s what the Indy 500 should be for. In fact, I wish there weren’t a NASCAR race the same day, because some of those drivers might come here, too.
“The trend of the IRL is definitely up,” Cheever added. “And if I was owning any CART stock, I’d be selling it.”
Two of the biggest names at Indy before the IRL split away from the dominant CART were Michael Andretti and Al Unser Jr. Unser, who ran an IRL car last year, and Andretti both qualified Saturday, although Unser is only 19th and Andretti 24tth. Andretti, still a top contended in CART, averaged only 220.747 mph in his Barry Green Motorola-Dallara, while Unser accepted a 221.615. Both expressed hope their speeds would stand up to make the 33-car field, and stressed that order in the starting field wouldn’t matter.
Among drivers qualified faster than Unser and Andretti are several well-known racers, like Arie Luyendyk, Robbie Buhl, Buddy Lazier, deFerran, and Helio Castroneves, but also quicker was Sarah Fisher, 19, who became the youngest woman to make the field at age 19 a year ago, as well as Sam Hornish, Brazilian Felipe Giaffone, Jaques Lazier, and Jon Herb. Those qualifiers all ran early in the day, and after several hours of inactivity, the other hot runners came out in the final hour.
It was then, after the sun had drifted beyond the roof of the main grandstand, casting a cooling shadow on the main straightaway to create the optimum combustion and traction conditions that generate faster speeds for the legendary “happy hour,” that Dismore, Robby Gordon, Jeff Ward, Scott Goodyear, Greg Ray, and Robby McGehee also qualified substantially ahead of Unser and Andretti.
“It’s the biggest race in the world,” said Andretti. “The history of Indianapolis is that it draws all the best drivers, from here, from Europe, from Formula 1, which is what makes it the biggest event. I’m a little older now, and hopefully a little wiser. You have to be around at the end, have good pit strategy, and have to be a little patient.”
First on the track to try to qualify, shortly after 11 a.m., was Luyendyk, the Dutchman who retired after the 1999 race after winning the 1990 and 1992 Indy 500s. Luyendyk put his Meijer G-Force-Oldsmobile into the field with an outstanding opening bid of 224.257 mph. A short time later, Unser and deFerran came out back-to-back. Unser was a CART star who suffered through several uncompetitive years before owner Roger Penske dismissed him, and he resurfaced in the IRL driving for Rick Galles. There were all sorts of accusations spread in Unser’s defense that Penske’s cars weren’t good enough any more, but as soon as Unser left, Penske hired deFerran and Helio Castroneves and promptly returned to victories and the CART championship.
Saturday, Unser drove four laps at 221.615 in a G-Force-Olds. “I think we’re in the show real solid,” said Unser. When deFerran followed him out, his Dallara-Olds flying Penske’s Marlboro colors took the early hold on the pole at 224.406 mph.
“Indianapolis has always been the arena where all the best come from all different race series,” said deFerran, a Brazilian. “What gave this race so much prestige was exactly that — it brought in the best drivers from all series. You can just feel the fantastic atmosphere created over the years, and the more talent the better.”
As for the notion that the CART race cars are far more sophisticated than the IRL racers, deFerran indicated that Dallara and G-Force had pretty well caught up to the CART car level. “There is a slightly different feel, but the definitely hasn’t been that big a difference in how the cars feel, compared to our CART racers,” deFerran said. “On this track, you’re going mostly wide-open, so all you feel is being on the edge the whole time.”
While deFerran was being interrogated in the media room, the television monitor showed Sharp’s car on the track, and as he spoke, deFerran occasionally glanced from the podium to the monitor. Sharp’s run was spectacular, and deFerran turned with a shrug and said: “I’m not on the pole anymore.”
Tony Stewart was the next man up, and he, too, ran off four hot laps, with a 224.248 average for his four laps to come in just under deFerran.
Stewart finds himself in the unique position of representing CART owner Chip Ganassi. While Stewart drove Sprint cars in his development years, he rose to stardom in the fledgling IRL, and left to now race in NASCAR stock cars. But Ganassi, who hired too rookie drivers for the CART series this year, after losing CART and last year’s Indy 500 winner Juan Montoya to Formula 1, and releasing Jimmy Vasser, hired Stewart and Vasser to drive two of his Target cars at Indy.
“I’m really proud of the Ganassi team,” said Stewart. “Here I am, having never driven for Ganassi, and with an engineer I never even met until I got to the track here, and they’ve worked really hard to see if they could be better than their team was last year here.”
Stewart is going to try for the second time what he said he’d never do again — race in the Indy 500 at noon and then fly to Charlotte to race in the World 600 NASCAR race later that afternoon. Ganassi, always the master of covering all his options, bought and prepared two Dallaras and two G-Force race cars, just in case one proved to be better. Ganassi qualified in a G-Force racer, as did Vasser — at 223.455 mph — which meant Ganassi had two other race-ready cars sitting idle. So he made a move.
Bruno Junqueira and Nicolas Minassian, Ganassi’s two rookie CART drivers, have been summoned to Indy and will try it.
Tommy Archer aims new Viper team at top of Trans-Am series
Motorsports can be a fickle occupation, and Duluth’s Tommy Archer has reached his level of competence by staying just ahead of the curve, so to speak.
Archer has been driving for Team Oreca, a French endurance-racing operation that was working with Chrysler Corporation to campaign a fleet of V10 Viper sports cars in long-distance events such as the 24 Hours of LeMans. But he saw that things were changing at Team Oreca last season, so when a new opportunity presented itself, Archer was ready.
“We probably ran the Vipers about one year longer than we should have,” said Archer. “Other teams with the new Corvette were coming on strong, and I knew Oreca was planning to race a new prototype and not run the Vipers this year. So when a guy came to me and asked if I’d be interested in running something different in the Trans-Am series, I listened.”
That fellow was Joe Tranchida, a suburban Detroit auto racing enthusiast. He wanted to enter a car in the Trans-Am series for sporty cars, but he wanted to come up with a different angle from the usual Mustangs, Camaros, Corvettes and Porsches that populate the long-standing North American road-racing series.
“I told him I thought something that would be different, but would attract a lot of attention, would be to run a Viper in Trans-Am,” Archer said. “He said the cars had to have V8 engines, but I figured that a lot of cars are running engines they don’t have on the street, so why not put a V8 in a Viper?
“We had a new team, new driver, new car, new engine, new engineer and new crew, and we didn’t get started until last October. But we’ve done pretty well, and we’ve attracted some attention in the first two races. Nobody has ever run a Viper in Trans-Am before, and we’ve got this big, blue Viper that kind of stands out.”
Archer, who raced for years with Bobby as the Archer Brothers, then worked for years in the family business with his other brothers. Several months ago, Tommy sold the high-performance auto operation to his brother John.
“My youngest brother, John, had always said he’s like to own the business,” said Tommy. “And I was away racing so much it made it pretty hard to do much with the business. So I sold my share to him. It was a good fit for both of us. He’s going to do a good job with the business, and I can pay more attention to my racing, and to my rental properties.”
As for the racing, Archer said the new team’s debut has been better than expected, and he anticipates it improving more.
“We were fifth at Sebring in the first race, and we were fourth at Long Beach, although we probably should have won that second one,” Archer said. “We got up to second place and had a problem with fuel starvation. We got it fixed, and finished fourth, but it turned out that the only car ahead of us when we were second crashed, so we could have won if we didn’t have the sort of problem we won’t have after we get a few races under our belts.”
The series figured to be dominated by veteran Trans-Am drivers Paul Gentilozzi, Brian Simo and Boris Said, but Archer figures he and his new team could end up making an impact on the leaders.
“Said won the first race, but crashed in the second one,” Archer said. “Simo and Gentilozzi had to figure to be the favorites at the start of the season. But we’re now tied for third in points, nine points out of first. And some of those others are at the top of their potential, while we’re going to get better in every race.”
At Archer’s suggestion, Tranchida brought in Will Moody, an experienced Trans-Am-winning crew chief. The crew installed a 310 cubic inch Chrysler V8 in the Viper, and Archer estimates it turns out 640 or 650 horsepower — impressive, even if a few horses less than the top competitors.
“Chrysler Corporation isn’t behind us at all, but I figure they’re watching us,” said Archer. “We’ve got two test sessions before we run the next race, at Mosport, near Toronto, on May 20, and I’m really looking forward to it. I knew the Viper thing was coming to an end with Team Oreca, and the chance to do the Trans-Am by putting together the right deal, and the right people — most importantly the people, because I want it to be fun — then it was worth it for me to sign a two-year contract.”
It may be a two-year contract, but Tommy Archer’s history is that he’s far too impatient to do anything but deliver paybacks long before the second year.
Tommy Archer aims new Viper team at top of Trans-Am series
Motorsports can be a fickle occupation, and Duluth’s Tommy Archer has reached his level of competence by staying just ahead of the curve, so to speak.
Archer has been driving for Team Oreca, a French endurance-racing operation that was working with Chrysler Corporation to campaign a fleet of V10 Viper sports cars in long-distance events such as the 24 Hours of LeMans. But he saw that things were changing at Team Oreca last season, so when a new opportunity presented itself, Archer was ready.
“We probably ran the Vipers about one year longer than we should have,” said Archer. “Other teams with the new Corvette were coming on strong, and I knew Oreca was planning to race a new prototype and not run the Vipers this year. So when a guy came to me and asked if I’d be interested in running something different in the Trans-Am series, I listened.”
That fellow was Joe Tranchida, a suburban Detroit auto racing enthusiast. He wanted to enter a car in the Trans-Am series for sporty cars, but he wanted to come up with a different angle from the usual Mustangs, Camaros, Corvettes and Porsches that populate the long-standing North American road-racing series.
“I told him I thought something that would be different, but would attract a lot of attention, would be to run a Viper in Trans-Am,” Archer said. “He said the cars had to have V8 engines, but I figured that a lot of cars are running engines they don’t have on the street, so why not put a V8 in a Viper?
“We had a new team, new driver, new car, new engine, new engineer and new crew, and we didn’t get started until last October. But we’ve done pretty well, and we’ve attracted some attention in the first two races. Nobody has ever run a Viper in Trans-Am before, and we’ve got this big, blue Viper that kind of stands out.”
Archer, who raced for years with Bobby as the Archer Brothers, then worked for years in the family business with his other brothers. Several months ago, Tommy sold the high-performance auto operation to his brother John.
“My youngest brother, John, had always said he’s like to own the business,” said Tommy. “And I was away racing so much it made it pretty hard to do much with the business. So I sold my share to him. It was a good fit for both of us. He’s going to do a good job with the business, and I can pay more attention to my racing, and to my rental properties.”
As for the racing, Archer said the new team’s debut has been better than expected, and he anticipates it improving more.
“We were fifth at Sebring in the first race, and we were fourth at Long Beach, although we probably should have won that second one,” Archer said. “We got up to second place and had a problem with fuel starvation. We got it fixed, and finished fourth, but it turned out that the only car ahead of us when we were second crashed, so we could have won if we didn’t have the sort of problem we won’t have after we get a few races under our belts.”
The series figured to be dominated by veteran Trans-Am drivers Paul Gentilozzi, Brian Simo and Boris Said, but Archer figures he and his new team could end up making an impact on the leaders.
“Said won the first race, but crashed in the second one,” Archer said. “Simo and Gentilozzi had to figure to be the favorites at the start of the season. But we’re now tied for third in points, nine points out of first. And some of those others are at the top of their potential, while we’re going to get better in every race.”
At Archer’s suggestion, Tranchida brought in Will Moody, an experienced Trans-Am-winning crew chief. The crew installed a 310 cubic inch Chrysler V8 in the Viper, and Archer estimates it turns out 640 or 650 horsepower — impressive, even if a few horses less than the top competitors.
“Chrysler Corporation isn’t behind us at all, but I figure they’re watching us,” said Archer. “We’ve got two test sessions before we run the next race, at Mosport, near Toronto, on May 20, and I’m really looking forward to it. I knew the Viper thing was coming to an end with Team Oreca, and the chance to do the Trans-Am by putting together the right deal, and the right people — most importantly the people, because I want it to be fun — then it was worth it for me to sign a two-year contract.”
It may be a two-year contract, but Tommy Archer’s history is that he’s far too impatient to do anything but deliver paybacks long before the second year.
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Kenyans claim 9 of top 10, dominate Grandma’s
The question “Which Kenyan will win this year?” was far more than just cynical rhetoric at the 34th running of Grandma’s Marathon, which had its familiar theme tinged with sadness in the aftermath. Kenya’s involvement was only joyful, with Philemon Kemboi leading a contingent that finished 1-5 and had nine of the top 10.
Kemboi’s surprising late bid left Chris Kipyego and David Rutch behind over the final mile, and his third-to-first burst broke the Canal Park tape at 2 hours, 15 minutes, 44 seconds. It was Kemboi’s first marathon victory ever, although it was Kenya’s 10th in the last 14 Grandma’s Marathons.
The race will, unfortunately, be remembered for having sustained the first fatality in the Marathon’s 34-year history. Norman Ruth, 64, from Duluth’s suburb of Hermantown, finished the 20th Annual Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon, which started earlier in the day, but after finishing he required medical attention, and died of an apparent heart attack. He was attended at the medical tent near the finish line and then hospitalized, but didn’t recover.
While Duluth’s premier sports event is annually well-promoted and attains numerous pages of publicity, organizers were obviously unprepared to deal with the tragedy. Later on race day, only the fact that someone had died in the half-marathon was disclosed.
Meanwhile, out on the course along Lake Superior’s North Shore, the full marathon was being taken over by the three top runners, all making their first visits to Duluth. They led the swift crop of runners who make their annual pilgrimage to Duluth and return home by bolstering their East African nation’s economy.
“It was the biggest race I’ve ever won,” said Kemboi, who earned $10,900. “I will go home…and I will go to the bank. I feel good about being able to help my family’s life to improve.”
Kenya’s elite runners had won nine of 13 before Minnesota native Christopher Raabe won last year. Raabe ran among the leaders this year, too, and finished sixth as the only interruption to Kenya’s top nine places.
Things were much simpler to follow in the women’s segment, where Buzunesh Deba from Ethiopia, simply sped away from the start, and recorded a personal best 2:31:36 time to beat runner-up and fellow-Ethiopian Yeshimebet Bifa by almost four full minutes.
Deba moved from Ethiopia to New York four years ago, and said watching the New York Marathon in 2008 caused her to decide to become a distance runner. After competing in shorter 5K and 10K races, she started in marathons only last fall.
“The first marathon I entered I won,” she said. Her winning time in the California International Marathon was 2:32:17, and after running seventh in the New York Marathon, she sped into 2010 by winning the National Marathon to Fight Breast Cancer in Florida with a time of 2:33:08. So Saturday’s run was her best by almost a minute.
“My plan was to start fast and try to get ahead,” she said, laughing herself at such obvious strategy, except that she made work. She was alone by the 5-mile mark, and nobody else ever got within view of her.
Mary Akor, who had won the last three Grandma’s, finished fourth, behind the top two Ethiopians, and Everlyne Lagat. Akor, 33, has suffered with recent illness that is scheduled for surgery in the near future, and she had to yield to the youthful Deba, who is 22, and Bifa, 21.
The 20th annual Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon was also owned by African runners. Stephen Muange of Kenya won a close men’s segment in 1:04:24, three seconds ahead of Bado Worku, an Ethiopian who was closely followed by countrymen Derese Deniboba Rashaw and Worku Beyl. The women’s category was won by Caroline Rotich, in 1:12:40, nearly two minutes ahead of Alemtsehay Misganaw in a 1-2 Ethiopian finish.
The festive attitude of marathon day was as high-spirited as usual, because nobody had been informed that, hours earlier, Ruth had become the first fatality in the Marathon’s 34-year history. Dr. Ben Nelson, serving his first race as medical director, made the early evening announcement of the fatality, but said he met with race officials and they decided to release no other information.
The fatality was a shocking irony on a race day with temperatures in the mid-60s, about 20 degrees cooler than the year before, which greatly reduced the number of runners affected by the heat and high humidity. Dr. Nelson said in the full and half marathons, 230 runners required some medical attention, but only four from the finish-line tent and three others from out on the course were sent to hospitals for treatment — a significant reduction from recent years.
Withholding news of the tragedy, intentionally or not, left the day to the usual celebration, and the drama for the full marathon built throughout. Race-watchers along the North Shore saw the Kenyans dominate from start to finish, with the three front-running Kenyans pulling away around the 23-mile mark. By the time they glided off London Road and onto Superior Street, the three lead runners were alone. But even then, there was a surprise finish.
Kemboi, 36, whose best previous marathon time of 2:10:58 was good for only a fifth-place finish in France last year, was loping along right behind the tandem of Kipyego, 36, and Rutch, 24, who said they were anticipating which of the two would make the pivotal move for the lead. Kemboi burst past them both as they turned off Superior Street, and his more experienced rivals couldn’t match his finishing speed.
Kemboi is taller than most other Kenyan runners, at 5-foot-8 and 120 pounds, and when he stretched his legs out running down Fifth Avenue West, his winning time of 2:15:44 beat Kipyego by 16 seconds, with Rutoh three more seconds back in third. Kenyans Kipyegon Kirui and Kennedy Kemei were fourth and fifth. Sixth was Raabe, the Minnesota native who was a surprise winner last year. Raabe, who now lives in Washington, D.C., was followed by four more Kenyans, as the prolific elite visitors were the class of the 5,620 entries who finished the full marathon.
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Despite the cooler conditions, the full marathon didn’t threaten any records. Kemboi’s winning time was far off the record established by Minnesotan Dick Beardsley in 1982, at 2:09:37 in the fifth year of the event. In fact, Kemboi’s 2:15:44 was a half-minute off last year’s winning pace, when Raabe won at 2:15:13. But the victory was a breakthrough for Kemboi.
A late starter in competitive running, Kemboi had grown up on a family farm near Kapsabet, about seven hours drive from Nairobi. His family never had a car, he said, and when he realized he could help his family by earning money in distance running, he started seriously training in 2004. Calf injuries hindered him for a couple of years, so he had only entered three previous marathons.
Inexperienced or not, he said, “I thought I could win it.” His top rivals were less convinced. Kemboi, speaking only his native Swahili via an interpreter, said he went along with Kipyego and Rutoh, his two countrymen, when they moved away from the pack. “It wasn’t a bad pace,” Kemboi said. “But when they decided to push forward, I was in agreement that we needed to pick up the pace.”
He said he thought he surprised them when he went for the lead as the three turned off Superior Street, down the Fifth Avenue West hill toward the harbor. Kipyego had run against Rutoh before, but didn’t know Kemboi. After the three leaders got away from the field, Kipyego was running alongside Rutoh and said, “I told this guy, ‘Let’s push, let’s push.’ I told him it was time to break away. I was expecting him, if anyone, to be the one to go for the lead.
“I didn’t know who this other guy was. When he went by us, I tried hard to close the gap, but he was very strong for me. I started thinking, ‘Is HE going to win the race?’ ”
He was, indeed.
Kipyego said Grandma’s is unlike other major marathons, which he suspects limit the number of Kenya runners invited. There were 27 at Grandma’s.
“I saw the list, with so many Kenyans, and I thought, ‘This will be fun,’ ” said Kipyego, He said his sister, Sally, became a top NCAA runner at Texas Tech after growing up running to keep up with her big brother. In Kenya, running ability is naturally attained by a different lifestyle from childhood. In the U.S., kids might be driven six blocks to a playground, a fact Kipyego found amusing.
“We had no cars, no buses, and there were no roads,” said Kipyego, who is from the city of Eldoret. “School was five kilometers away, and there was no school bus. We’d run to school in the morning, run home for lunch, then run back to school, and then run home, every day.”
That is a common thread among the Kenyan runners. Kemboi said he, too, ran from the family farm to school, but it was only one kilometer. Hardly proper training for an elite marathon runner. But even if 36 makes him a late-bloomer, his victory can be a springboard to more marathon invitations.
Perennial star Mullen leads perennial power Hawks
Pressure? What pressure? If there is anything resembling pressure on Hermantown’s return to Caswell Park in North Mankato this week to defend its Class AA Minnesota state high school softball championship, it was not noticeable — and with good reason.
The Section 7AA tournament provided as much pressure as Hermantown(23-4) was prepared to face Pipestone Area (20-1) in the opening state tournament game. It turned out that Hermantown beat Pipestone, and won a semifinal game as well, but lost in the championship game to fall one short of repeating as state champs.
But getting there was enough of a chore to remain in the Hermantown players’ memory banks forever. After the Hawks won their third straight Section 7AA title, coach Tom Bang acknowledged that he had an unfair advantage after the Hawks survived four consecutive elimination games to win the Section 7AA championship at Braun Park in Cloquet.
“Any time you have No. 4 going on the mound for you, you know you’ve got a real good chance,” said Bang.
No. 4 is Megan Mullen, whose pitching and hitting decided last Thursday’s pair of must-win victories over Duluth Central, who gave the most credit back to Bang. Mullen and fellow-senior Julia Gilbert have been standouts for four straight years, while Ellen Folman, another senior, has been a regular for three seasons.
That was no guarantee of anything, of course. In the sectional, the Hawks lost a 3-2 opening game to an aroused Duluth Central team, which was playing its final season as a separate entity before a controversial merging with Denfeld takes hold and the “red and white” falls victim to the “Red Plan.”
After upsetting Hermantown to open play on Tuesday of last week, Central also beat Denfeld to stand undefeated, while Hermantown had to beat Greenway of Coleraine right after the loss to Central, then had to also beat Denfeld in another battle the same day, where the loser was finished for the season.
That sent Hermantown back to the Thursday finals against Central, and the determined Hawks — knowing they had to beat Central twice to capture the title — blew out the Trojans 8-0 to set up an immediate rematch. With both teams having one loss, one more loss would mean the end of the season for Hermantown, and the end of the season and the program for Central.
Mullen and Central freshman Sarah Hendrickson duelled through three scoreless innings, then Mullen drove in the first two runs in the fourth, and another in the fifth, and pitched the Hawks to a 3-1 victory.
“Over the years, we’ve had a lot of outstanding players, including Lindsay Erickson, who went on to play for the Gophers,” said Bang, who is completing his 31st season as the architect of the dominant program. “But I’d have to say Megan Mullen is the most talented pitcher I’ve had, and probably the best player. We had four seniors last year, and 14 returned from the tournament roseter for this year.”
And it was Bang, Mullen said, whose strategic maneuvers helped turn Tuesday’s 3-2 loss into Thursday’s 8-0, 3-1 sweep, with the two setbacks ending Central’s outstanding season at 17-7. Central’s players played hard through both games, and showed great spirit, with their emotions finally running over during their final post-game huddle. The intensity of the two games meant both teams spent everything on the field, and in the end, Mullen’s hitting was a pivotal difference.
“My hitting?” said Mullen. “Tuesday didn’t go so good, but today worked out better. We set goals at the start of the season, and one of my goals was to bat over .400. I don’t know for sure what my average is now, but it’s somewhere around .420. But the biggest difference between us losing 3-2 to Central, and beating them twice is Mr. Bang. When they beat us, Central definitely had their bats going real well, but in these two games, Mr. Bang called the pitches. He had watched all their hitters, and that made a big difference. Central’s hitters are really good, and they recognize change-ups and adjust to hit them. So today we went with more hard stuff — I would say 98 percent of my pitches.”
Bang said his signal calling required no special genius, and he continued to go with her fast ball and other power pitches. “Her rise ball is hard, her curve is hard, and she has a little screwball that goes outside-in to right-handed hitters,” said Bang. “I like to get ahead in the count, so I like her fastball down and in or down and out. During the season, we beat Central 1-0 on a passed ball that only got about 6 feet away from their catcher, but Julia Gilbert beat the play home. Megan struck out 18 of 21 outs in that one.”
Mullen’s windmill pitching — which will be on display next season as a freshman at UMD — deserved high praise. She allowed four hits, walked one and struck out nine in the 8-0 game, when Bang took her ouot after five innings. With both teams mobilized for an all-out effort in the decisive second game, Mullen went all seven innings, allowed five hits, no walks, and struck out nine again. She sailed through six innings, giving up three hits, walking none and striking out nine, and just when it appeared she would hurl back-to-back shutout gems, Molly Jadzewski led off the seventh by blasting a home run over the right-centerfield fence, and Kylie Murray added a single before Mullen got out of further trouble.
But Mullen’s hitting was just as pivotal. Hermantown established itself with a 5-run top of the first inning. Mullen’s double drove in the first run, and Ellen Folman singled home two more. It got better in the second game, after Central regrouped to make its final bid, and Hendrickson battled Mullen evenly until the last of the fourth.
It was 0-0 when Julia Gilbert beat out a bunt single leading off the fourth and stole second. Rudi Summers bunted her to third and beat it out for another hit, then she also stole second, putting runners at second and third with none out. Mullen came up next and drilled a single to right, driving in both Gilbert and Summers for a 2-0 lead. That might have been the biggest hit of the season for Hermantown, but in case more was needed, Mullen singled home another run in the fifth to make it 3-0.
Going 2-3 and driving in all three runs was enough to deserve the spotlight, if it wasn’t for Mullen’s strong pitching. At the state tournament, of course, everybody has a story of similar heroics, and even though Mullen threw yet another no-hitter in the semifinals, the Hawks fell just short.
CENTRAL’S FINAL BID
On the other side of the Section 7AA final, Central coach Nat Brown knew what his Trojans were up against in the quest to finish off Hermantown.
“We knew going in that even though we were undefeated, we were going to have a tough time,” said Brown. “In our two earlier games against Hermantown [the 1-0 loss and Tuesday's 3-2 victory], Julia Gilbert had scored all three runs against us, so how important was it to keep her off the bases? But we came out tight, she’s the first hitter up, we boot it, and they go on to score five.
“That made it tough. You don’t want to raise a white flag, but you almost wish you could just call the game and get ready for the second game.”
Brown pulled Sarah Hendrickson, who emerged as a standout pitcher despite being only a ninth-grader, after three innings, to help her get replenished for the rematch. She responded with a strong 5-hitter in the second game, striking out five.
“Sarah felt so bad between games,” said Brown. “She came up to me and said, ‘Sorry I let you down.’ I told her, ‘You’ve never let me down for a second.’ ”
Having finished his 10th year coaching, Brown now must re-apply to see if he will be allowed to continue coaching the newly combined Central-Denfeld team next year.
BANG’S EVENTFUL YEAR
Hermantown coach Tom Bang has had what you might call an eventful year since last year since the school year ended. On June 9, the Hawks won the state title — the school’s third. On June 10, he went in for heart surgery. He retired as a teacher, but he said he would stay on as softball coach. Now they’ve earned their way back to the state tournament for the chance to defend their state title, which begins one day after the anniversary of last year’s championship.
“I had a problem with my bicuspid heart valve, and developed an anorism in my aorta,” Bang said. “They replaced it with a metal valve on June 10. I knew the previous November that I would have to have the surgery, and one doctor said I should hve it within six months, so I knew I could make it until the season was over.”
By a day. With his heart situation in mind, was that why his players didn’t try to give him a Gatorade dowsing after winning the 7AA title? “No,” said Bang. “They got me last year, and I faked a heart attack.”
Bang, a lifetime resident of Hermantown, played baseball and football at the school before graduating in 1969.
“I started teaching in 1978, so I don’t know if that means I’ve coached 31 or 32 years,” said Bang.
Jill, his wife, knows full well that this is his 31st year coaching. It turns out that June 9 not only was the day the Hawks won last year’s state title, it was the 31st anniversary of Tom and Jill’s wedding. Three children, three state titles, and two state runner-up finishes later, Jill still remembers. “He didn’t really tell me about the coaching,” said Jill. “But if they’d won one more game that year, he would have missed our wedding rehearsal.”
This is the 17th time Bang has taken Hermantown to the state tournament in his 31 seasons. It also is the Hawks’ ninth straight Class AA tournament, although Hermantown took a break when it was boosted up to Class AAA for two years. That means Hermantown went to state in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, then moved up and failed to make the state AAA tournament in 2006 and 2007, and since returning to Class AA, the Hawks have won three straight sectionals.
Obviously, he hasn’t lost his passion for coaching, or his skill at maneuvering his carefully cultivated talent for success. And he’s learned to be a little flexible, too. They ran into daylong rain on Tuesday, but they held a pre-state tournament practice Monday. How did it go?
“It wasn’t bad, considering,” said Bang. “School’s out now, and the seniors had their all-night graduation party, so not everybody was as sharp as they could be.”
They were razor sharp for the state tournament, and fell just shy of their ultimate goal after a brilliant effort.
2011 Sonata lifts Hyundai to midsize class supremacy
The calendar hasn’t said 2010 for long, but Hyundai is already soaring toward next year with an all new and completely redesigned 2011 Sonata. To say it is already stirring up all sorts of interest and demand in Hyundai showrooms would be a serious understatement.
The Sonata hit the streets in 2005, rising steadily to become a cost-effective alternative to the Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Ford Fusion, Chevrolet Malibu, Mazda6, Nissan Altima, and whatever other nameplate you can crowd into that mainstream “midsize” form chart. With the Sonata as its primary weapon, Hyundai surprised the auto world for calendar 2009 by actually making a profit and gaining marketshare in a year when all those others suffered losses serious enough to resemble a series of mega-earthquakes that sent tremors through the industry.
Before you can say “Who are these guys?” Hyundai has unleashed the 2011 Sonata, being built in the new high-technology plant in Montgomery, Alabama. Think about it: A whole lot of good-ol’ Southerners, including rednecks, embracing a South Korean company, which is stabilizing the regional economy by building a car in a U.S. plant, using U.S. workers. Fascinating concept. But it’s only as good as the car that comes out the door, and the new Sonata is very good indeed.
In my opinion, the new Sonata is the best-looking of the whole batch of midsize cars. At a glance, it appears Hyundai kidnapped the Mercedes designer who drew up the superbly styled CLS “four-door coupe” sedan, with its sweeping, coupe-like silhouette. If the logo on the grille said Acura or Lexus, or Mercedes, it would cost twice as much. The Sonata’s slippery shape has a coefficient of drag of 0.28. Lower is more aerodynamic, anything under 0.35 is good, and 0.32 is excellent, so 0.28 is off the charts, even for a sports car.
Under that artfully-sloped body bolsters the prediction that the Sonata is an immediate favorite contender for 2011 Car of the Year. Pick whichever characteristic is most important — base price, loaded price, fuel economy, engine technology, transmission function, precise steering, sporty and agile handling, firm-but-not-harsh suspension, supportive seats, interior amenities, head and legroom, trunk space — the new Sonata has the whole package.
Competitors all start in the mid-$20,000 range, and soar to $35,000 at the drop of a nav system. By comparison, the Hyundai Sonata has three models: The GLS starts at $19,295 but is pretty well equipped, the sportier SE starts at $22,595, and the top-level, leather-clad-seat Limited starts at $25,295. True, you can add all sorts of neat features and drive those prices up, but a fully loaded Limited, with everything, including navigation system, would still be under $28,000.
The new Sonata comes only with a 4-cylinder engine. No V6 option. John Krafcik, the President and CEO of Hyundai America, explained that 88 percent of Sonata buyers choose the 4. “If 12 percent of the buyers buy V6es, then the other 88 percent have to have the heft of a platform built to house the V6,” said Krafcik. In contrast, designing the platform around only the 4 means the new Sonata could be tighter, leaner, stronger, and safer, from a construction standpoint. Even a brief drive in the new Sonata is convincing about the unified feel and the potency of the engine’s advanced design.
The Theta II GDI engine has all the latest high-tech tricks. Not only does it have dual overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder, but it adds dual variable valve-timing, and gas direct-injection, which sends those dished pistons churning with impressive results. All those top competitors have 4-cylinder engines measuring either 2.4 or 2.5 liters, and all are DOHC designs. But direct injection lifts the Sonata to 198 horsepower and 184 foot-pounds of torque. By comparison, the Accord’s 2.4 has 177 horsepower/161 foot-pounds of torque; the Altima’s 2.5 has 175/180; the Fusion (and Mazda6) 2.5 has 175/172; the Camry’s 2.5 has 169/167; and the Malibu’s 2.4 has 169/160.
For those questioning Hyundai’s technology, Exhibit A is a horsepower edge that ranges from 21 horses over the runner-up Accord to 29 over the Camry and Malibu, and Exhibit B is the torque edge ranging from 4 more foot-pounds than the runner-up Altima to 24 better than the Malibu. For good measure, the SE model of the Sonata goes slightly upward, to 198 horses and 184 foot-pounds.
If you’re looking for Exhibit C, the Sonata has EPA fuel economy figures of 22 city and 35 miles per gallon highway for the automatic, and 24/ 35 with the manual. All the 4-cylinder models in the midsize class have good EPA numbers, ranging from a low of 22 in city driving for all but the Altima’s 23, up to a high of 35 — by the Sonata — on the highway cycle. Other highway EPAs show the Accord and Fusion at 31 with automatics, the Camry and Malibu 33 each, and the Fusion 34 with the stick.
In real-world driving, however, there is reason to believe the Sonata will expand its edge substantially, leading to Exhibit D. Krafcik, a sharp-witted, clever, and candid fellow who has bold ideas and carries them out, discussed the vaguaries of EPA estimates with me a couple years ago. I mentioned how some companies make engines with good fuel economy, others have trouble approaching their EPA estimates, and still others hide behind impossible-to-achieve EPA numbers and refuse to even discuss “real world” gas mileage, which might be significantly less. Krafcik said: “Now that we’ve gotten our EPA fuel economy numbers up where we want them, our next objective is to make our real-world gas mileage the best, too.”
So after his minions set up the mountain roadways near San Diego for the media test drives, Krafcik drove a new Sonata over the route and got remarkably good gas mileage. He challenged the media members to spend part of the drive enjoying the curvy mountain roads and the car’s performance, up to and past the Julian Pie Shop, and then to strive to see who could get the best fuel economy on the return route, from the South Coast Winery to Torrey Pines hotel.
Being a gas-mileage zealot, I set the on-board computer on the curvy part, as well, and got 38.3 miles per gallon. Very impressive. On the return, much of the 60.3 miles was freeway, and I was driving with a Hyundai engineer who also was a hockey fan. We got engrossed in great conversation, about Herb Brooks, and a book I’ve written about his coaching career, and comparing the Olympics then and now. All of a sudden, as we approached Exit 27, he said: “Oops! We were supposed to turn on Exit 19.”
Not a problem. We cut across the countryside and got there, in plenty of time. I enjoy mileage tests, but not the “hyper-mileage” tricks of extremely slow and bothersome speeds. I attempted to draft behind a large, square-back semi part of the way, but I did maintain the speed limits rather than driving super-slow just for economy. I averaged 46.8 miles per gallon, and I was amazed. When we heard the winning tandem recorded 52.8 miles per gallon, and second best was 49.0, we accused them of going 40 miles per hour on the shoulder.
Flashing back to EPA estimates, Hyundai now averages 30.1 miles per gallon for its entire fleet. Honda is second best at 29.7, Volkswagen 29.6, and Toyota 29.4. But Hyundai is the only manufacturer to have a corporate average over 30 miles per gallon. And when you consider that the Sonata so easily topped its 35-mpg EPA highway estimate, and so readily could attain 40-plus, you realize technology has allowed Krafcik’s vow to blossom.
In overall length, the Sonata is 189.8 inches, while the Camry is 189.2, the Fusion 190.6, Altima 190.7, Malibu 191.8, the Mazda6 193.7, and the Accord 194.1. Interestingly, though, the Sonata has a total interior volume of 120.2 cubic feet, while the Accord has 120.0; those are the only two in the class that meet large-car interior limits, while the rest are properly midsize, as the Fusion lists 116.8, the Camry 116.4, the Altima 116.0, and the Malibu 112.8. The Sonata’s mix shows passenger volume of 103.8, where only the Accord’s 106.0 tops it, and a cargo volume of 16.4 cubic feet, where only the Fusion’s 16.5 beats it. The Accord, with top passenger volume, has the least cargo volume in the class at 14.0.
The Sonata weighs only 3,161 pounds with a 6-speed manual — yes, a stick-shift! — while with a 6-speed automatic, the Sonata weighs a still-svelte 3,199 pounds. The Altima, at 3,180 pounds, is the only one lighter, while, for example, the Accord is 3,269, the Camry 3,307, the Fusion 3,342, and the Malibu 3,415.
Combining more power — from technical advances, not enlarged displacement — with lighter weight gives the Sonata a clearcut edge in acceleration. But its handling is also impressive. With strut front and multi-link rear suspension, the SE model has 23-percent firmer front and 8 percent firmer rear shocks, with a 13-percent larger rear stabilizer bar. That helps adroit handling, and the steering and design give the Sonata a 35.8-foot turning radius. Comparatively, the Camry and Altima need 36.1 feet, the Fusion 37.5, the Accord 37.7, and the Malibu 40.4 feet. Which do you like for a U-turn?
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It is neat that the Sonata can be obtained with a 6-speed stick, but its new Shiftronic automatic is also a 6-speed, and Exhibit D is that the unit is Hyundai’s own transmission, making Hyundai one of only three automakers to have invented their own proprietary 6-speed automatics. A manual shift gate on the shift lever is augmented by steering wheel paddles on the SE models for manual control of the automatic. It took four years of development, and the 6-speed automatic is 26.5 pounds lighter than the 5-speed unit it replaces, and it also is shorter and has 62 fewer moving parts.
Hyundai — which only started building cars in the late 1960s and has made up a couple of decades of ground on long-term rivals in the past couple of years — is forging ahead. The 2.4 engine put the company’s engineers on a new plane, and they followed up with the superb DOHC V8 that propelled the large Genesis to 2009 Car of the Year honors. They next refined their V6, then came back and improved the 2.4, adding direct injection. Meanwhile, technology never sleeps, and at the New York Auto Show last month, Hyundai unveiled two more models to the still-new 2011 Sonata — coming next will be a 2.0-liter 4-cylinder turbo sporty model, and a hybrid built of entirely Hyundai technology.
Back to Krafcik, who might be classified as a slice of 8-grain bread with lots of nuts and seeds, in a world of white-bread auto executives who seem to be alternatingly defending their losses and creating illusions about hopes for the future. Krafcik inspired my bread analogy with a comment at the introduction of the Sonata.
“Our success in 2009 was the culmination of a lot of hard work,” Krafcik said. “When the economy is hurting, people do more research and put more effort in deciding on their choices. That helps us. We brought out the 2011 Sonata with some Super Bowl ads, and they worked well, especially for a brand like ours, where our image hasn’t caught up with our capabilities. The Sonata is in the ‘white bread’ segment, and we have three objectives: We want to be a rational choice, we want to lead the way in being environmentally friendly, and we want to make an emotional connection.”
With such features as side-impact airbags and stability control standard, and a transferable powertrain warranty of 10 years or 100,000 miles, Hyundai has taken care of rational consideration. As for depreciation and residual value, Hyundai now is better than Toyota or Ford. For residual value, the Accord retains 54 percent of its value after three years, with the Sonata second at 53 percent, followed by the Altima 51 percent, Camry and Fusion at 49 percent, and Malibu at 46 percent. And that is not considering the new 2011 Sonata, with all its improvements.
Two or three years ago, I was reluctant to recommend a Korean car to anyone who asked my advice. Improved though they were, they were still in formative form against the slick Japanese, the potent Germans, and even the U.S., bent as some manufacturers seemed to be on self-destruction from varying doses of arrogance and complacency. The Fusion won 2010 Car of the Year in hybrid form, the Mazda6 has risen to sporty styling heights, the Malibu has improved in current form, and the Altima, Accord and Camry all are larger and their usual solid selves. But right now, I would insist that any serious buyer comparison shop the 2011 Hyundai Sonata.