Asheville Citizen-Times from Asheville, North Carolina • Page 31

ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES Tourist Stop Stats, standings and box scores for Asheville's minor-league baseball team. PAGED4 Road masters swerve toward record Extra curvy, course curtails to Gordon, Wallace By Tom Gardner THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SONOMA, Calif. Jeff to Gordon and Rusty Wallace will be 1-2 at the start of the Dodge-Save Mart 350. If one of them is up front after 112 KEITH JARRETT Save Mart 350 Site: Sonoma, Calif. Schedule: Sunday, race (Fox, 3:30 p.m.) Track: Sears Point Raceway (permanent road course, 1.949 miles, 11 turns).

Race distance: 218.288 miles, 112 laps. laps Sunday, he 11 be NASCAR's most successful driver on road courses. No big deal, says Wallace, Jeff Gordon Rusty Wallace here. His string of six consecutive road-course wins three, here and three in Watkins Glen, N.Y. ended last year with Steve Park's victory in Watkins Glen.

"He's been more successful than most people here the last four years, and he's been on a tear here lately," Wallace said of Gordon. After finishing ninth in the series standings in 2000 two spots behind Wallace Gordon is leading in the championship race this year and has finished first or second in five of the last six events. Wallace, on the other hand, has fought bad luck mostly mechanical to finish as low as 43rd in Las Vegas and 41st in Michigan. in doing that, we've been testing like crazy." Wallace spent two days testing on Sears Point's rolling two-mile course in Northern California's wine country and also visited the "all-inclusive" Virginia International Raceway. "The two tracks are totally different, but the fact is that VIR is about as good of a place as you could find to test out all of your equipment," he said.

Gordon, who grew up in nearby Vallejo, didn't test at Sears Point although he did spend some time on the VIR road course near Danville, kind bubbles out of it and I think that after six or eight cars run it, it always makes the track just a little bit better," Wallace said. Gordon was fastest in Saturday's final practice with the car set up for racing. His fast lap was 93.356 mph. Wallace's best was 92-773- Wallace won the pole last year at Sears Point. He won the second Winston Cup race on the track in 1990 three years before Gordon became a series regular and also prevailed in 1996.

Gordon has taken three of his four road-course poles who will try to end Gordon's three-year winning streak at Sears Point Raceway and become the first driver in Winston Cup history to win seven times on serpentine layouts. "I'm just going out for a Point's 10 turns to win the pole Friday. Wallace was a bit slower at 93.417. He blamed a bobble in one turn, but said his early qualifying spot didn't help. He was the fourth driver out, Gordon the 21st "When the track sits for a long time in the heat, the oil Va.

"It felt like we have improved some things on the car," he said. "The car just drove great. We never had to change a gear one time. We were right on the money." His car had a fast lap of 93.699 mph around Sears win on Sunday. That's it.

No sense in talking about it," Wallace said. "We're committed to get a grip back on our road race program and NEW YORK TRAFFIC IS THE WORST '8(dl DUO sports commentary City delivers by balancing risk, reward Asheville City Council got it right. With a 6-1 vote Tuesday, city council approved a three-year contract to bring in a minor-league basketball team. As a revenue source, the National Basketball Development League is an unknown entity that has made a lot of claims about how much money it can produce. We'll see about that, but what city council accomplished this week went beyond possible profits for the beleaguered Civic Center.

With public opposition from hockey fans and those who enjoy public skating and the legitimate concerns of Asheville Smoke owner Dan Wilhelm, it would have been easy to just say no. Instead, the council trusted the findings of its staff on projected revenue and expenses, listened and believed council members Charley Worley and Edward Hay when they told them they had negotiated a good deal, offered Wilhelm assurances and went out on a limb and voted for Asheville's future. There are no easy answers to the Civic Center. More bad news is coming this week when an architectural study reveals how many millions it will cost to renovate the dump. beats lets By Josh Dubow THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK Steve Reed sure knows how to make a good first impression on a new team.

One day after being acquired in a trade for John Braves Mets A $tfx jfe; HOI I I I irr XO vr 1 jc I A I Rocker, Reed took a flight halfway across the country, fought New York traffic, and got the win as the Atlanta Braves beat the Mets 0-2 in 11 With a state budget crisis 7-for-i2 with four homers against Reed. "I got you in a hot spot already, but here are the signs," Cox said to the sidearming right-hander. Reed (1-0) got Piazza to hit into a double play, and got out of the inning when Javy Lopez threw out Lenny Harris attempting to steal second base. The Braves then won the game with a six-run 11th inning against Rick White (1-1). Reed joined Cleveland in similarly fashion on July 24, 1998.

He arrived from San Francisco during the national anthem and pitched two scoreless innings to get a 2-1 win over Detroit in 11 innings. "It's really weird that it happened twice like that," Reed said. Before Reed came on, it looked like the Braves would miss Rocker this day. With new closer Steve Karsay not yet activated, Remlinger couldn't protect a 3-2 lead in the ninth. Remlinger has blown all three save chances this season, while Rocker converted 19 of 23.

White, the sixth Mets' pitcher, retired the first two batters in the 11th before the Braves loaded the bases on singles by Rico Brogna and Dave Martinez, and a walk to Quilvio Veras. Newcomer i i Steve Reed Saturday. Reed arrived at Shea Stadium in the eighth inning and was called on in the 10th after Rocker's temporary fill-in Mike Remlinger gave up a game-tying homer in the ninth inning to Desi Relaford. "I introduced myself," he said. "I said, 'Hi, I'm Steve Reed.

How are you doing. I throw a fastball, slider and changeup. Let's There was a runner on first base and no outs when Braves manager Bobby Cox brought in Reed to face the Mets' most dangerous hitter, Mike Piazza, who had been iv THE ASSOCIATED PRESS New York Mets second baseman Desi Relaford tumbles over center fielder Darryl Hamilton and in front of leftfielder Benny Agbayani (50) and shortstop Rey Ordonez (10) in pursuit of a pop up off the bat of Atlanta Braves Javier Lopez. More on the Braves trade of John Rocker to the Cleveland Indians, D6. in the hundreds of millions and politicians reluctant to ask for money, making do is probably going to be modus operandi for at least a couple more years.

But by accepting a deal that guarantees $5,000 rent 28 times a year and the potential for profits from parking, concessions and advertising, the city is being pro-active in its pursuit of making the Civic Center a more functional and diverse entertainment venue. The NBA has made it clear it will leave after three years if there aren't renovations or apparent progress toward eventual improvements. That gives the city plenty of time to not only come up with money plans, but to gauge how well the NBDL is going to fly and how effective the SFX Entertainment package works for the other seven cities in the league. As the only city without the entertainment deal, Asheville could be losing out on a money-maker or end up looking savvy for avoiding what in Fayetteville is a $300,000 annual fee for 25-30 acts that will range from con-Certs to rodeos and ice shows. Asheville couldn't afford SFX and the punitive penalty clauses in the origi Citizen-Times A3I-WNC Team Look for other All-Western teams at Inside All-Western soccer team, D10 Passion pushes her performance C0UGAJ Transfer is win-win for McKay, Asheville with the Cougars or the Rapids, McKay might be found playing in the Olympic blackballed because she didn't run the state meet.

nal NBDL contract, and give Now the rising senior schedule is virtually nothing but soccer, barely leaving time for studying or anything else. Last weekend, she and Blue Ridge Rapids teammate and Northwestern 4-A Conference Player of the Year Ashley Rex of Watauga traveled to Raleigh to play in the State Games. She has practice Hay and Worley credit for hammering out a better contract. Development Program or with her Classic team, the Highland EC. Quest "I like how it's complicated," McKay said of the game.

"But you've got to be an all-around good player for it; you can't just be out there." It didn't look like soccer was in her future when she was about 7 years old, Johann remembered. He and the kids Asheville's Hilary McKay, left, battles Roberson goalie Carta Punch in a game earlier this season. Steve Dixon STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Going into business with Hilary McKay By Phil Alexander STAFF WRITER ASHEVILLE Having a father who was raised in Germany meant Hilary McKay received an early education in the sport Germans call "fulsball," which is pronounced like the popular table soccer game of the 1970s. She'd either grow to love or hate it, and once when her brother gave her a cut requiring 50 stitches during a family kick-around, it looked like it would be the latter. But McKay, the Citizen-Times Girls Soccer Player of the Year for the second year in a row, recovered and found so much love for the sport that she skipped a state track meet for a soccer tournament, souring her coaches at Enka and leading her to transfer to Asheville.

"They told her that if she didn't run as a sophomore in cross country, her athletic career at Enka was over," said her father Johann McKay, the son of an American GI and a German mother. Hilary said she was an established and successful entity like the NBA sure looks like a good move, and with the amateur minor-league Rapids in three years it will be easy nightly. When the team canceled practice to judge City Council decision. Yet without benefit of that hindsight, six leaders of this city stepped up and said yes to the possibility of making a bad situation better. Wednesday her 17th birthday she instead went to Brevard to practice with several of her Rapids teammates, her father said.

"In order to be a great or good player, you really have to have a passion," he said. "It can't be, 'I like basketball and soccer No, you've got to love it" She has that passion. If it's not playing were playing when older brother Travis went to retrieve a ball in some gravel and a piece of the rock stuck in his cleats. When he slide-tackled her, the rock gashed her unprotected shin. "She's lying there saying, 'I'm never Please see MCKAY on D10 Contact Jarrett at 232-5867 or.