Judy Middleton of Albion, second from the right with the blue ribbon, was one of the featured speakers at the Noble County Relay for Life, held Saturday in Ligonier at West Noble High School. She is surrounded by other members of her team, “Friends of Faith,” during the 24-hour event sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

About 50 cancer survivors and their caregivers took part in the survivors’ lap during the Noble County Relay for Life, held Saturday at West Noble High School in Ligonier. The event concludes this morning. The survivors and caregivers were treated to a free meal on Saturday evening.

About 50 cancer survivors and their caregivers took part in the survivors’ lap during the Noble County Relay for Life, held Saturday at West Noble High School in Ligonier. The event concludes this morning. The survivors and caregivers were treated to a free meal on Saturday evening.

LIGONIER — It’s not easy to get up in front of hundreds of people, most of them strangers, and talk about a very personal aspect of your life.

But for Albion resident Judy Middleton, her short speech at Saturday’s Noble County Relay for Life came easy, for the most part, especially considering what she’s gone through in the past year.

Middleton, like many of the people taking part in Saturday’s events at West Noble High School football field, is a cancer survivor. She gathered up the courage to talk about her fight and hopefully inspire others who may find themselves hearing those dreaded words from a doctor: “You have cancer.”

“Nine months ago, I never thought I would be here, telling my story … I never thought it would happen to me. But I probably wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for the research that comes out of the work done at the Relay for Life,” she said.

Middleton, 41, told her audience she thought she was “too busy” to get cancer.

“There wasn’t time for me to be sick. It just wasn’t possible,” she said.

But after discovering a lump in her breast last spring, the wife, mother and grandmother went in for her first-ever mammogram in July 2011. That test confirmed the news that led to several months of treatments.

She’s gone through 16 rounds of chemotherapy and 30 radiation treatments. She also had to undergo a mastectomy.

“All of that gave me a new outlook on life,” she said.

Her words came with some difficulty as she talked to about 50 other cancer survivors who came to Ligonier to take part in the relay, along with a few hundred walkers from the 30-plus teams signed up for this year’s event.

Her talk also carried an important message.

“Don’t wait to get a mammogram,” she said. “And what the doctor tells you to do, do it!”

Also speaking later in the evening was Jenn Will of Wolcottville, another breast-cancer survivor. She addressed the audience during the new “Fight Back” portion of the Relay for Life.

As darkness fell over the football field, the stadium lights were turned off and the only light came from hundreds of candles lining the quarter-mile track. The names of hundreds of victims of cancer were read over the public-address system. Earlier in the day, the names of cancer survivors were read.

Although the number of participants in the Noble County event has decreased over the past few years, their level of dedication and commitment to fight cancer can’t be questioned, said Carla Fiandt of Albion, chairperson of the 2012 Relay for Life. The first event in Noble County was held in 1997.

“While each of us have our reason for being here, we share the common goal of working to make sure more people get to celebrate more birthdays,” Fiandt said.

More than 4 million people around the world are taking in Relay for Life events this year, Fiandt told her audience.

The worldwide theme this year is “More Birthdays,” as the cancer fighters want their work to lead to more people being able to celebrate many more birthdays.

The Relay for Life ends at 9:30 a.m. today. Awards will be presented to the teams and individuals that raised the most money for the American Cancer Society.

Article source: http://www.kpcnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=34807:Cancer-survivor-shares-her-story&catid=51:latest&Itemid=79

Spitzer, now 79-years old, was no stranger to the controversy surrounding his chosen subject. Thirty years earlier, he had played a leading role in removing homosexuality from the list of mental disorders in the association’s diagnostic manual.  Clearly, his interest in the topic was more than a passing academic curiosity – indeed, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say he seemed invested in demonstrating that homosexuality was changeable, not unlike quitting smoking or giving up ice cream.

Fast forward to 2012, and Spitzer is of quite a different mind. Last month he told a reporter with The American Prospect that he regretted the 2001 study and the effect it had on the gay community, and that he owed the community an apology. And this month he sent a letter to the Archives of Sexual Behavior, which published his work in 2003, asking that the journal retract his paper.

Spitzer’s mission to clean the slate is commendable, but the effects of his work have been coursing through the homosexual community like acid since it made headlines a decade ago. His study was seized upon by anti-homosexual activists and therapists who held up Spitzer’s paper as proof that they could “cure” patients of their sexual orientation.

Spitzer didn’t invent reparative therapy, and he isn’t the only researcher to have conducted studies claiming that it works, but as an influential psychologist from a prestigious university, his words carried a lot of weight.

In his recantation of the study, he says that it contained at least two fatal flaws: the self reports from those he surveyed were not verifiable, and he didn’t include a control group of men and women who didn’t undergo the therapy for comparison. Self reports are notoriously unreliable, and though they are used in hundreds of studies every year, they are generally regarded as thin evidence at best. Lacking a control group is a fundamental no-no in social science research across the board. The conclusion is inescapable — Spitzer’s study was simply bad science.

What’s remarkable is that this classic example of bad science was approved for presentation at a conference of the leading psychiatric association, and was subsequently published in a peer-reviewed journal of the profession.  Spitzer now looks back with regret and critically dismantles his work, but the truth is that his study wasn’t credible from the beginning. It only assumed a veneer of credibility because it was stamped with the imprimatur of his profession.

Why this occurred is a bit more complicated than a mere case of professional cronyism.  For many years before his paper on reparative therapy, Spitzer had conducted studies that evaluated the efficacy of self-reporting as a tool to assess a variety of personality disorders and depression. He was a noted expert on the development of diagnostic questionnaires and other assessment tools, and his work was influential in determining whether an assessment method was valuable or should be discarded.

Little wonder, then, that his paper on reparative therapy–which used an interview method that Spitzer recognized as reliable–was accepted by the profession.  This wasn’t just anyone claiming that the self reports were valid, it was one of the most highly regarded diagnostic assessment experts in the world.

Reading the study now, I’m sure Spitzer is embarrassed by its flaws. Not only did he rely on self reports, but he conducted the participant interviews by phone, which escalates unreliability to the doesn’t-pass-the-laugh-test level. By phone, researchers aren’t able to evaluate essential non-verbal cues that might cast doubts on verbal responses. Phone interviews, along with written interviews, carry too much guesswork baggage to be valuable in a scientific study, and Spitzer certainly knew that.

The object lesson worth drawing from this story is that just one instance of bad science given the blessing of recognized experts can lead to years of damaging lies that snowball out of control.  Spitzer cannot be held solely responsible for what happened after his paper was published, but he’d probably agree now that the study should never have been presented in the first place.  At the very least, his example may help prevent future episodes of the same.

Article source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/05/19/how-one-flawed-study-spawned-a-decade-of-lies/

By Lori Morgan | @dailydisrupt

Pregnant women, including those who are obese or overweight, should be encouraged to minimise weight gain through diet, according to major new research from Queen Mary, University of London.

Piling on excess weight during pregnancy increases the risk of complications for pregnant women but doctors have been cautious in advising women on ways to manage weight for fear of any adverse effect on mother or baby.

However, the new study published in the BMJ shows that following a healthy diet, overseen by health professionals, stems excess weight gain in pregnancy and reduces the risk of pregnancy complications such as pre-eclampsia, diabetes, high blood pressure and early delivery.

Half the UK population are either overweight or obese and the rates are rising. Around a third of women gain more than the recommended amount during pregnancy.

Previous research has linked obesity during pregnancy with an increase in a variety of risks including high blood pressure, diabetes, miscarriage, birth defects, blood clots, pre-eclampsia, and even maternal and infant deaths.

The new research, which brings together the results of 44 separate studies, is the largest of its kind and includes data on more than 7,000 women. It was commissioned and funded by the NIHR’s Health Technology Assessment programme.

The researchers investigated the effect of diet, exercise, or a combination of the two. They looked at how much weight women gained throughout pregnancy and whether mother or child suffered from any complications.

Although all three methods reduced the mother’s weight gain, diet had the greatest effect with an average reduction of nearly four kilograms. Exercise only resulted in an average reduction in weight gain of just 0.7kg. A combination of diet and exercise only produced and average reduction of one kilogram.

Women who followed a calorie controlled diet were 33 per cent less likely to develop pre-eclampsia, one of the most dangerous pregnancy complications that presents with raised blood pressure and protein in the urine. Their risk of gestational diabetes was 60 per cent lower, their risk of gestational high blood pressure was 70 per cent lower and their risk of early delivery was 32 per cent lower. However, the researchers acknowledge that these findings need to be confirmed by further large studies.

Crucially, babies’ birth weights were not affected by dieting.

The research was led by Dr Shakila Thangaratinam, a Clinical Senior Lecturer and Consultant Obstetrician at Barts and The London Medical School, part of Queen Mary, University of London with researchers in UK and Europe. She said: “We are seeing more and more women who gain excess weight when they are pregnant and we know these women and their babies are at increased risk of complications.”

“Weight control is difficult but this study shows that by carefully advising women on weight management methods, especially diet, we can reduce weight gain during pregnancy. It also shows that following a controlled diet has the potential to reduce the risk of a number of pregnancy complications.

“Women may be concerned that dieting during pregnancy could have a negative impact on their babies. This research is reassuring because it showed that dieting is safe and that the baby’s weight isn’t affected.”

Dietary advice was based on limiting overall calorie intake; balancing protein, carbohydrate and fat; and eating foods such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables and pulses.

Dr Thangaratinam added: “What we don’t know is why diet should be so much better than exercise in controlling weight gain. It could be that it is simpler and easier for women to stick to. It may also be that eating a high-fibre diet has other positive health effects for a pregnant woman.”

Combining data on the thousands of women who participated in these trials will also allow researchers to further examine the effects of diet and exercise across women of various ages, body mass index, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and medical conditions.

The Women’s Health Research Unit at Queen Mary, University of London has recently established an international collaboration on Weight Management in Pregnancy (i-WIP) to answer these questions.

Source: Queen Mary, University of London.

Article source: http://www.dailydisruption.com/2012/05/a-healthy-diet-during-pregnancy-reduces-risk-of-pregnancy-complications/

Cash Burnaman (Family photo)

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NEW DELHI — A 6-year-old South Carolina boy has traveled with his parents to India seeking treatment for a rare genetic condition that has left him developmentally disabled.

An overwhelming number of medical experts insist the treatment will have zero effect.

Cash Burnaman is mute. He walks with the aid of braces. To battle his incurable condition — which is so rare it doesn’t have a name — Cash has had to take an artificial growth hormone for most of his life.

His divorced parents, Josh Burnaman and Stephanie Krolick, are so driven by their hope and desperation to help Cash they’ve journeyed to the other side of the globe and paid tens of thousands of dollars to have Cash undergo experimental injections of human embryonic stem cells.

The family is among a growing number of Americans seeking the treatment in India — some at a clinic in the heart of New Delhi called NuTech Mediworld run by Dr. Geeta Shroff, a retired obstetrician and self-taught embryonic stem cell practitioner.

Shroff first treated Cash — who presents symptoms similar to Down Syndrome — in 2010. “I am helping improve their quality of life,” Shroff told CNN.

After five weeks of treatment, Cash and his parents returned home to the U.S.

That’s when Cash began walking with the aid of braces for the first time.

His parents were thrilled. Before the treatments, Cash could only get around by hopping, his mother said. The results were enough to persuade Cash’s mother to go back to Shroff for more help.

“We saw evidence the first time that it’s worth trying again,” Krolick said. “In this particular case, with Cash’s other conditions, we don’t have many other options.”

For four or five weeks of treatment, Shroff says she has charged her 87 American patients an average of $25,000. It’s a big financial hit for Burnaman, a volunteer firefighter and property manager, and Krolick, who attends technical college in Greenville, South Carolina.

But the boy’s family and friends went into fundraising mode, creating a blog called ChangeForCash.com, and amassing about $50,000 over a year.

Are patients like Cash truly receiving treatments that improve their quality of life? Or is therapy giving patients false hope?

Doctors say all that work and hope and money Cash’s supporters have funneled into his experimental therapy likely will have no medical benefits.

There are several types of stem cells. Adult stem cells can be found in mature cells and some organs. For example, bone marrow cells are a type of adult stem cell that have been used in transplants for more than 40 years.

But because adult stem cells are taken from parts of the body that already have a purpose, they may be limited as to what they can be turned into.

Embryonic stem cells are the controversial ones because they’re harvested from leftover IVF embryos, which are then destroyed in the process.

Embryonic stem cells come from 4-or 5-day-old fertilized eggs and have the ability to turn into any type of cell in the body.

Since human embryonic stem cells were first discovered in 1998, researchers have been trying to take these unique cells and coax them into becoming cells for every part of the body, which then could be used to repair damage or regenerate tissue.

For many years a virtual ban on funding this type of research slowed the field down.

Researchers have developed another source of stem cells: skin cells. Scientists learned to turn the clock back on skin cells so they’re like embryos — with stem cells that have the same “blank slate” properties like embryonic stem cells — but without the controversy. These cells are called “IPS” (induced pluripotent stem) cells — and are not yet being used in human experiments.

There are no approved embryonic stem cell treatments in the United States. However, the Food and Drug Administration has approved two experimental clinical trials in humans using treatments made from human embryonic stem cells.

One of these — to repair spinal cord injuries — was stopped due to the high cost of this type of research; the other trial — to restore vision in people with macular degeneration — is still underway.

There is hope that embryonic stem cells might someday lead to treatments for Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, traumatic spinal cord injury, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and other conditions, according to the National Institutes of Health. Someday.

Nevertheless, Shroff isn’t waiting for further research. She’s injecting patients with embryonic stem cells now.

“There is zero evidence for what she is doing being effective,” said Rutgers University’s Dr. Wise Young, a leading U.S. neuroscientist.

“It’s concerning no matter how you look at it,” said CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. “Frankly it’s the complete wrong way of going about this sort of science.”

Inside her clinic, surrounded by patients, Shroff disagreed.

“Success,” she said, “is defined differently by various groups of people within that therapy mode. So as of right now, almost everyone — greater than 90% — have had success.”

But Cash’s family has its doubters, too. The boy’s father said he still isn’t totally convinced the treatment works.

“If we had taken away the stem cells and hadn’t done it, is this where he would be naturally?” Burnaman said. “And that’s where I keep coming back to is — I’m not sure.”

“It’s risky medical therapy,” acknowledged Krolick, who feared it would worsen Cash’s condition. “But I knew that we were going to have to do it. We did pick this clinic for a reason. I mean, we did look around, and we decided this is the place where we felt safe. She had a good track record.”

An energetic doctor who trained in India, Shroff says she acquired embryonic stem cells with the patient’s permission after she performed an in-vitro fertilization procedure on a woman more than a decade ago.

She would not allow CNN access to the facility where she says the embryonic cells are kept and harvested.

Nurses and assistants at NuTech Mediworld routinely inject patients with embryonic stem cells daily simply by sticking the needle into a patient’s back.

The routine at the clinic starkly contrasts with procedures CNN observed at a sanctioned embryonic stem cell trial at Atlanta’s Emory University, where technicians and surgeons took hours to conduct a safe injection.

NuTech Mediworld’s treatment also includes physical therapy. The patient and a guest receive room and board. The rooms are cramped with bathroom facilities available down a long hallway.

Shroff has treated patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Others had spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy, genetic and muscular skeletal disorders.

Pure embryonic stem cells are not meant to be put directly into the body, since they have to the potential to turn into any cell. That’s why credible researchers first chemically “coax” these stem cells into heading down the path of what they should turn into — for example nerve cells or heart cells — before injecting them into very specific parts of the body to achieve the desired results.

The doctor offered examples of her successes including a man from Baghdad who she said was a paraplegic because of multiple gunshot wounds and an Indian toddler who she said has a genetic disorder similar to Cash’s.

Kohl Guffey, an 18-year-old from Illinois who was paralyzed three years ago in a motocross accident, cites himself as another example of success at the clinic.

“Before I came here, I didn’t have any movement in my left hand between my fingers,” said Guffey. “Now I can retract them really good.”

Shroff conceded that when she attempted to present her findings to an internationally sanctioned stem cell conference, her medical abstract paperwork was rejected. But she continues to defend her work. “I believe that my patients are getting better,” she said. “I have proved it time and time and time again.”

She was present at a recent meeting of the Indian Council of Medical Research where prominent Indian physicians criticized embryonic stem cell clinics that have appeared in New Delhi and elsewhere throughout the sprawling country.

A leading Indian neurosurgeon, Dr. P.N. Tandon, agreed there was zero medical evidence of the effectiveness of embryonic stem cell therapy like that provided at NuTech Mediworld. There is no stem cell treatment proven in India that will make patients like these better, Tandon said, and none “proven anywhere in the world.”

Patients also have traveled for similar therapy in Central America, Mexico and China, although that country has recently clamped down on stem cell clinics.

For Young, the money charged for the therapy stands out as an ethical issue. “It’s all about $25,000,” he said. The cost of the treatment is “calculated to take a family to the brink of what they can afford, and they take everything.”

“Who doesn’t want to get rich?” Shroff asked. “Who doesn’t work for money? But you also have to work from the heart. You also have to see what you’re doing. Is it ethically right? And I believe I am doing everything right.”

Credit: David Fitzpatrick and Drew Griffin, CNN Special Investigations Unit. CNN Medical Managing Editor Miriam Falco contributed to this report.

Article source: http://myfox8.com/2012/05/19/family-hangs-hope-for-sc-boy-on-unproven-therapy-in-india/

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The name alone sounds so encouraging: HDL, the “good cholesterol.” The more of it in your blood, the lower your risk of heart disease. So bringing up HDL levels has got to be good for health.

Or so the theory went.

Now, a new study that makes use of powerful databases of genetic information has found that raising HDL levels may not make any difference to heart disease risk. People who inherit genes that give them naturally higher HDL levels throughout life have no less heart disease than those who inherit genes that give them slightly lower levels. If HDL were protective, those with genes causing higher levels should have had less heart disease.

Researchers not associated with the study, published online Wednesday in The Lancet, found the results compelling and disturbing. Companies are actively developing and testing drugs that raise HDL, although three recent studies of such treatments have failed. And patients with low HDL levels are often told to try to raise them by exercising or dieting or even by taking niacin, a drug that raised HDL but failed to lower heart disease risk in a recent clinical trial.

“I’d say the HDL hypothesis is on the ropes right now,” said James A. de Lemos, a University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center professor of medicine who was not involved in the study.

Michael Lauer, director of the division of cardiovascular sciences at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, agreed. “The current study tells us that, when it comes to HDL, we should seriously consider going back to the drawing board — in this case meaning back to the laboratory,” said Dr. Lauer, who also was not connected to the research. “We need to encourage basic laboratory scientists to figure out where HDL fits in the puzzle — just what exactly is it a marker for?”

But Steven Nissen, the Cleveland Clinic’s chairman of cardiovascular medicine, who is helping conduct studies of HDL-raising drugs, said he remained hopeful. HDL is complex, he said, and it is possible that some types of HDL molecules might in fact protect against heart disease. “I am an optimist,” Dr. Nissen said.

The study’s authors emphasize that they are not questioning the well-documented finding that higher HDL levels are associated with lower heart disease risk. But the relationship may not be causative. High HDL levels may be a sign that something else is going on that makes heart disease less likely. But HDL itself may not be directly reducing risk.

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Article source: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/science/study-good-cholesterol-may-be-overstatement-636683/

Baby boomers account for more than 2 million of the 3.2 million Americans infected with the blood-borne virus. It can take decades to cause liver damage, and many people don’t know they’re infected.

CDC officials believe the new measure could lead 800,000 more baby boomers to get treatment and could save more than 120,000 lives.

“The CDC views hepatitis C as an unrecognized health crisis for the country, and we believe the time is now for a bold response,” said Dr. John W. Ward, the CDC’s hepatitis chief.

Several developments drove the CDC’s push for wider testing, he said.

Recent data has shown that from 1999 to 2007, the number of Americans dying from hepatitis C-related diseases nearly doubled. Also, two drugs hit the market last year that promise to cure many more people than was previously possible.

The virus can gradually scar the liver and lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer, and is the leading cause of liver transplant. It can trigger damage in other parts of the body as well. All told, more than 15,000 Americans die each year from hepatitis C-related illnesses, according to the CDC.

The hepatitis C virus is most commonly spread today through sharing needles to inject drugs. Before widespread screening of blood donations began in 1992, it was also spread through blood transfusions.

Health officials believe hundreds of thousands of new hepatitis C infections were occurring each year in the 1970s and 1980s, most of them in the younger adults of the era — the baby boomers. The hepatitis C virus was first identified in 1989.

Today, about 17,000 infections occur annually, according to CDC estimates.

About 3 percent of baby boomers test positive for the virus, the CDC estimates.

Of those, some manage to clear the infection from their bodies without treatment, but still have lingering antibodies that give a positive initial test result. That’s why confirmatory tests are needed.

Still, only a quarter of infected people are that lucky. Most have active and dangerous infections, Ward said.

The agency’s current guidelines recommend testing people known to be at high risk, including current and past injection drug users.

But as many as a quarter of infected baby boomers say they don’t recall engaging in a risky behavior.

It’s possible some people were infected in ways other than injection drug use or long-ago blood transfusions. Some experts say tattoos, piercings, shared razor blades and toothbrushes, manicures and sniffed cocaine may have caused the virus to spread in some cases.

Those kinds of experiences might not raise flags in the minds of many patients or their physicians, experts said.

A recent Harris Interactive survey of 1,000 baby boomers found other forms of ignorance about hepatitis C. Fewer than 20 percent knew they belonged to the generation most likely to be infected, and only a similar percent were aware it can be cured in many patients.

Also, only about 25 percent said they had been tested, according to the survey, done on behalf of the American Gastroenterological Association and Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which makes one of the hepatitis C medications.

Currently, many baby boomers learn of their infection almost by accident, like when they donate blood or get a physical exam for a life insurance policy, said Dr. Ryan Ford, an Emory University physician specializing in hepatitis care.

He and other physicians celebrated the CDC’s announcement.

“It’s a long awaited and very much hoped for development that I believe will save lives,” said Dr. Ira Jacobson, a hepatitis expert at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center

The new testing recommendation is expected to become final later this year.

Article source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-05-18/hepatitis-C-Baby-Boomers/55059198/1

CONCORD, N.C. — With fireworks blasting in the background, Chad Knaus looked out at the track from his pit box and said with a tone of disbelief, “Is he on the side of the race car?”

Jimmie Johnson, who was celebrating a victory in Saturday’s Sprint All-Star Race, gave an affirmative that barely was audible through the laughter.

“Beautiful,” his crew chief said.

Yes, it was.

There are moments in sports you remember for the rest of your life. Rick Hendrick, 62, riding down the frontstretch of Charlotte Motor Speedway with one leg inside Johnson’s car and one leg out, his foot dragging the ground at times, is one of them.

When you hear the sequence of events that led to what Hendrick called “the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in racing,” it’ll become even more memorable.

But that and Dale Earnhardt Jr. winning a segment of the main event after capturing the preliminary is about all that was memorable from this night. Johnson and Knaus made a sham of the new All-Star format, seizing control on Thursday night and never looking back.

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Yes, Thursday. That’s when Johnson’s team won the pit crew competition to give Knaus first choice of pit stall for the race.

That became even bigger when Johnson won the first of four 20-lap segments, assuring he would be the first car on pit road for a mandatory stop before the final 10-lap shootout. It also allowed Johnson to sandbag for three segments, at times laying back what seemed like a county away on restarts to save his tires and his car.

When he took the green flag for the final segment it was just a matter of getting ahead of the other three segment winners — Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski and Earnhardt — and using the clean air that is such a huge advantage to claim the $1,071,340 first-place money.

“It played out perfectly,” Knaus said.

Said Johnson, “Everybody knew if you could win that first segment you could control the night.”

The only way Johnson wasn’t going to win was if he was forced to drag his team owner around the final 10 laps.

“I’d probably give him nine out of 10,” Keselowski said when asked how many times Johnson would have won under the above scenario.

Not that the outcome might have been different under another format. Remember, the win was Johnson’s third in this non-points event, tying him with teammate Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt for the all-time lead.

He’s pretty good at this.

And don’t forget that Johnson started the first segment sixth and took only 15 laps to overtake pole-sitter Kyle Busch for the lead.

“That’s probably a good indication of the strength of his car,” Keselowski said.

But the format the way it is gave Johnson a monumental edge. He knew it. Knaus knew it. That’s why the two met three or four times after the drivers’ meeting to rehash exactly what they wanted to do if Johnson won the first segment.

“It would be tough to knock the system after how our night went,” Johnson said. “I had to believe in the system. I really think whoever won that first segment would have done the same thing.”

After taking the checkered in the first segment, Johnson went into an all-out stall reminiscent of Dean Smith’s four-corners in college basketball. He was so far back at times that you thought he’d driven to nearby Bruton Smith Boulevard for a Starbucks latte while everybody else duked it out for a segment win.

He wasn’t that far from being lapped when Earnhardt won the final segment to give fans hoping for a repeat of his 2000 victory in this event a brief thrill.

Earnhardt didn’t have a chance. Nobody did after Johnson won the first segment, barring an engine failure or crash. Not in 10 laps with clean air.

“

I don’t think it would have made a difference if it was a hundred laps at the end. Jimmie was just that fast.

”
– Brad Keselowski

“I don’t think it would have made a difference if it was a hundred laps at the end,” Keselowski said. “Jimmie was just that fast.”

Still, it doesn’t feel right watching the fastest car on the track look like a start-and-park team for 60 consecutive laps. Drivers, as third-place Matt Kenseth said, are programmed to go as fast as they can, be up on the edge for as long as they can without wrecking.

Johnson had to get on edge for only 10 laps after winning the first segment. He was more on edge trying to keep his boss from falling out of his window than he was during the second, third and fourth segments.

This is where, as advertised, it would get more memorable, what most sporting events really are all about.

After the race, Hendrick was so excited that he asked Johnson to pick him up to take him to get the checkered flag. When Hendrick got to the car he thought twice, but Johnson wouldn’t let him off the hook that easy.

So Hendrick threw his right leg inside the window. Before he could change his mind, his foot was pinned in between the wheel and Johnson’s leg to the point Johnson couldn’t get to the clutch to change gears.

So Johnson grabbed Hendrick’s leg with one arm and the wheel with his other and took off to create one of the strangest and funniest scenes you’ll ever see in this or any sport.

Johnson was afraid if he let off the gas the car would start jerking and Hendrick would fall off, so he kept going until he could get to a good place to end the theatrics.

“That was just super stupid,” said Hendrick, putting Johnson and Knaus into tears of laughter when talking about busting like a watermelon had he fallen off.

Nothing Johnson or Knaus did was stupid. They had the perfect plan to take advantage of a format that Hendrick fully expects NASCAR to change again before next year.

They may be close to becoming the perfect team that they were in winning five consecutive championships from 2006-2010. Since wrecking on the start of the second lap of the Daytona 500 they have rolled off eight top-10s in 10 point races. They handed Hendrick his 200th career Cup win a week ago at Darlington.

They have to be considered the favorite entering next weekend’s Coca-Cola 600.

They could be on their way to turning Saturday’s memorable moment into another memorable season.

Johnson’s confidence is so high that it may not matter what format you throw at him. He talked of tying Earnhardt and Richard Petty for championships with seven, of “wanting to win eight.”

“I want to leave my mark on this sport when I leave,” Johnson said.

On Saturday, Johnson left his mark on the All-Star Race with one of the most memorable moments you’ll ever see.

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David Newton | email

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• NASCAR writer for ESPN.com
• NFL, college football writer for 20 years
• National award winner in motorsports coverage

Article source: http://espn.go.com/racing/nascar/cup/story/_/id/7947931/nascar-rick-hendrick-takes-ride-life-jimmie-johnson-all-star-race-win

The long NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule includes 34 races that pay drivers with points. Points they need to make the Chase. But for Saturday night’s All-Star race, it’s just about winning.

The only thing that counts is taking the checkered flag and the $1 million prize that comes with it. Driver had to deal with yet another new format to this year’s event. Winners of each of the four 20-lap segments were the first four cars to head down pit road for the final pit stop which ensured each would start up front in the final 10-lap shootout.

After winning the opening segment, Jimmie Johnson went to the back of the pack and hung out in the next three. It turned out to be a perfect strategy to collect the cash. So, let’s get to the “Five Things We Learned in the All-Star Race” at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

1. In a race of All-Stars, how fitting that Jimmie Johnson was the winner

No matter the sport, an All-Star event is designed to showcase the best of the best. And Saturday night’s Sprint All-Star race saw the best driver in NASCAR over the past 10 years drive to victory as five-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson won the $1 million prize for the third time in his career.

Last Saturday night, Johnson drove to victory in an “official” Cup race to give team owner Rick Hendrick his 200th career victory. Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Johnson gave Hendrick another victory worth $1 million, although the race does not count as a Sprint Cup points-paying event.

During the final 10-lap shootout Johnson was the lead car in a three-car breakaway that included Penske Racing’s Brad Keselowski in a Dodge and Roush Fenway Racing’s Matt Kenseth in a Ford.

“Man, Mr. H it’s been a big week for you brother,” crew chief Chad Knaus said over the team’s radio. “We love you man.”

“Man, that’s a heck of a job, buddy,” Hendrick radioed to Johnson. “What a week we are having.”

“I don’t want it to end,” Johnson radioed back before doing some celebratory burnouts and taking the checkered flag.

Johnson came down pit road and had team owner Hendrick hitch a ride on the No. 48 Chevrolet driving down the front stretch in the seventh All-Star win for Hendrick Motorsports.

Johnson joins Jeff Gordon and the late Dale Earnhardt as the only three-time winners of this event.

After starting sixth, Johnson’s effort to get good track position for the final 10-lap shootout was all he needed to pull away at the end.

“From winning last weekend with the 200th win at Darlington, then take the pit crew and win the Pit Crew competition and then to win tonight was great,” Johnson said. “We weren’t sure we could get there starting sixth but I put it on the outside of that first segment, let it rip and took the lead and then we played it smart and won that first segment.

“What a night tonight for myself and all these fans out there.”

It was indeed a special night for Hendrick Motorsports and Rick Hendrick. Look for this combination to be the favorite heading into next Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

2. Car No. 2 finishes second as Keselowski impresses

Brad Keselowski was the winner of the third segment which allowed him to start third in the 10-lap shootout.

“It’s all about the restart,” Keselowski said. “I was hoping for another yellow because I would have liked another shot. I thought we might have been a touch faster but it wasn’t meant to be. I’m proud of our team; it’s getting stronger every week, every day and every hour. We got beat by a five-time champion and a three-time All-Star winner. I just wish I had another shot at him.”

Keselowski believes the new format was easy for some of the drivers to figure out the strategy to win the big money at the end.

“The new format was certainly something different, which I kind of liked, something just different,” Keselowski said. “We were fortunate enough to win one of the segments, like you said, with Kasey Kahne. That was a lot of fun. Then it’s all about making sure you’re as good as you can be for that last section of the race. I feel like we were as good as we knew how to be. Jimmie was a little bit better. He did a great job. Hats off to him.

“We had a respectable night, for sure. You can’t be angry with a second, but I wanted to win that one extra spot. We just didn’t have it. I’m proud of the progress with where we started. We started 18th or 19th, I can’t remember where, got a second place out of that. That’s really good for the All Star race and the way it plays out. Good racing all the way through the midsections of the race. Just when I could have gotten to Jimmie and done something with him, but he was just lightning quick.”

Keselowski is developing into one of the best drivers in NASCAR and look for him to continue to heat up as the series heads into the hotter summer months.

3. Matt Kenseth has a solid finish and is another driver to watch in the 600

Kenseth won the second segment and started second over the final 10 laps. He would finish third, but showed he is having a great season.

“It was good we were able to win that second segment I guess kind of by accident,” Kenseth said. “Jimmy (Fennig, crew chief) and I were talking about pitting, decided last minute to stay out. I got out front, had a great hard race with Denny Hamlin to get the win in the second one. After that it’s kind of different because you spend 40 laps thinking about the last one, not over-revving your engine. From there on out, we tried to save our stuff, make sure we had the tires on our car coming down pit road for that stop and go, made sure we were in shape for that.

“We had a good start but I was disappointed at the last restart. I couldn’t get going. That outside lane was really, really hard on restarts. The few times I was on the bottom, the outside guy would lose three or four spots. In a 10-lap shootout when you have all the fast guys up front, when you’re third going into turn one; it’s going to be pretty hard to win it.”

4. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. finally wins a race but too bad it doesn’t count

NASCAR’s most popular driver took two checkered flags on Saturday night, including the Sprint Showdown that allowed him to advance into the All-Star race. Earnhardt would also win the fourth segment of the All-Star race, but unfortunately, neither of those victories counts as “official” so his long Cup winless streak continues.

“In the Showdown I learned that our car is pretty good,” Earnhardt said after winning the preliminary. “That is what I had time to learn. We will work on that and try to do our best. I want to take the opportunity to thank Sprint and NASCAR for putting on this All-Star race it’s a great opportunity to have a lot of fun and want to say hello to everybody who has donated to the foundation, the Dale Jr. Foundation, we have worked really hard to raise a lot of money to help out a lot of people. This is kind of what tonight is about.”

Earnhardt finished fifth in the All-Star race.

“The car was good and the race was good; it was pretty quick all night but we needed to start on the front row at the end,” Earnhardt said. “I’m proud of our effort tonight and look forward to next weekend. We’re going to bring this car back next week for the 600.”

5. Special engines lead to an explosive situation

Both defending All-Star winner Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle had special Roush Yates Racing Engines for this event in order to get a competitive edge. These engines were built for extra horsepower while sacrificing durability in an attempt to collect the cash. But when Biffle’s engine blew up with 22 laps to go it was a spectacular fireball.

Biffle was able to pull the smoking heap off the track and climb out safely without incident, but it underlines the lengths the teams were willing to go in order to collect the cash in a race without having to worry about points.

Instead of racing for the big prize at the end, Edwards became a commentator for Speed telecast.

“No, this is not where I wanted to be, but I learned how hard you can push Doug Yates’ engines,” Edwards said. “I had red lights on the dash the whole time. We had it taped up too much trying to get too much down force and we just broke it. We went all-out and it didn’t work. Last year was so much fun. We’ll be back next year. This is our style of race and I was having a good time.”

Article source: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/bruce_martin/05/20/all.star.race.five.things/index.html

Justin Sellers triggered a four-run seventh inning with his first home run of the season for the NL West-leading Dodgers, who improved the best record in the majors to 27-13.

Kershaw (4-1) got the seventh complete game of his career, striking out four and not allowing a runner past second base against an offense that came in leading the NL in team batting average, runs, homers, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. He did not walk a batter for the third time this season while lowering his ERA from 2.22 to 1.90.

• BOX SCORE: Dodgers 6, Cardinals 0

Kershaw, the reigning NL Cy Young winner, is 14-1 with a 1.40 ERA in his last 19 starts at home.

The Dodgers beat the defending World Series champions for the sixth straight time — their longest winning streak against the Cardinals since an eight-game stretch from July 24, 1975 through May 12, 1976.

Westbrook (4-3) was charged with four runs — three earned — and six hits in 6 ⅓ innings. The 34-year-old right-hander, pitching at Dodger Stadium for the first time in his 12-year career, departed after giving up Kershaw’s opposite-field double off the glove of left fielder Matt Holliday. It was Kershaw’s first extra-base hit after hitting 28 singles over five seasons.

Tony Gwynn Jr. greeted Eduardo Sanchez with a single that drove in Kershaw. The Dodgers got two more runs that inning when Gwynn scored on Sanchez’s wild pitch and Andre Ethier added an RBI single that increased his NL-best RBI total to 36.

Cardinals first baseman Lance Berkman left the game with an injured right knee after stretching for a throw from shortstop Rafael Furcal on Sellers’ groundout for the third out of the second inning.

Matt Carpenter took over at first and committed a fielding error on a hard-hit grounder by former Cardinal Adam Kennedy in the fourth inning, allowing the game’s first two runs to score. Kennedy, who had four hits in Friday night’s series-opening 6-5 Dodgers victory, was credited with one RBI on the play.

The switch-hitting Berkman, a six-time All-Star and the NL comeback player of the year in 2011, has played in only 13 games this season and is batting .333 with a homer and four RBI. He had just come off the disabled list last Sunday after being sidelined for 21 games because of a strained left calf he aggravated while chasing a popup.

In Friday night’s series opener, he homered as a pinch-hitter against Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen with two out in the ninth to tie the score, before the Cardinals lost in the bottom half on a bases-loaded walk. The homer ended the longest season-opening home run drought of his career after 40 at-bats.

Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis doubled his first two times up, and has reached base with a hit or a walk in 31 of his first 32 games — including the last 28 in a row. He entered Saturday with a .459 on-base percentage, the second-highest in the majors behind the Mets’ David Wright (.510).

The Dodgers’ injury jinx continued when second baseman Mark Ellis was placed on the 15-day disabled list Saturday because of a banged up left knee. He is the fifth position player and fourth regular that manager Don Mattingly has lost to the DL in a span of 11 days, including center fielder Matt Kemp, third baseman Juan Uribe, left fielder Juan Rivera and utility infielder Jerry Hairston Jr.

Ellis was injured during the seventh inning Friday night when he took a short toss from shortstop Dee Gordon on a fielder’s choice grounder by Shane Robinson and was upended by Tyler Greene on a hard but clean straight-on takeout slide. Infielder Ivan DeJesus was recalled from Class A Albuquerque to fill Ellis’ roster spot.

Notes: Gordon, the Dodgers’ regular shortstop and leadoff batter, got the night off after going 2-for-31 with 10 strikeouts and one walk in the previous seven games. Mattingly said before the game that he will sit him for a few days. … Kershaw, who led the NL with 248 strikeouts last season, has made 13 consecutive starts without reaching double digits in strikeouts. … In eight starts this season, Westbrook has yielded just one run over the first three innings. He has made only two other regular-season appearances against the Dodgers, both in relief for Cleveland in 2003.

Article source: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/nl/story/2012-05-20/kershaw-shutout-dodgers-cardinals/55086484/1