Dale Jr. Still Hasn't Talked To Childress
Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants to solidify his future in very short order. Earnhardt's sister and chief negotiator, Kelley Earnhardt Elledge, told ESPN.com Friday that they hope to finalize Earnhardt's future professional address within the next 30 days and then solidify sponsorship details before announcing his decision to the public sometime in late July.

Elledge said Earnhardt has "visited a few race shops and had a few meetings alongside myself, with team owners" in the weeks since he announced he would leave the company his father founded, Dale Earnhardt Inc., at season's end.

Elledge said she has personally spoken with "about seven" existing Nextel Cup teams and "about 10 investment groups who are on the verge of starting teams or buying a team." But the top three candidates all have slight issues that could slow the process.

Rick Hendrick told The Associated Press he presently doesn't have any room in his four-car Hendrick Motorsports stable for Earnhardt, and Joe Gibbs Racing officials are hesitant to strike a deal with Budweiser, Junior's longtime sponsor. Then there's Richard Childress Racing, where Earnhardt's late father won six of his seven championships. Although RCR seems like a perfect fit, the sides have yet to speak.

"Right now, Junior and Kelley have a lot of things to consider and a really big decision to make, and I'm just giving them their space as they deal with it all," Childress told the AP. "I want them to make the best decision, and they know I'm always here to talk and give advice."

When asked if it was peculiar that he had yet to speak to NASCAR's most coveted free agent -- at a time when the Earnhardts are actively taking meetings with other owners -- Childress said not to read anything into their lack of contact.

"They know how I operate," he said.(espn.go.com)

Angela Harkness Sentenced To 3 1\2 Years
A former stripper was sentenced to nearly three-and-a-half years in federal prison Friday for attempting to embezzle more than $1 million from a bank to start her own stock-car racing team. Fatemeh Angela Harkness, 31, pleaded guilty in January 2004 to conspiring with banker Gary Jones to embezzle more than $1 million from his Austin bank from 2000 to 2003. She received a 40-month sentence.

Harkness and Jones used the money to assemble a team called Angela's Motorsports in the second-tier of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). The team entered cars in the Busch Series starting in late 2002.

Harkness fled to Mexico before her sentencing in 2004 and continued on to the United Arab Emirates. She surrendered last month and was returned to the U.S. for sentencing.(iht.com)

Cracked HANS Not Unsafe
A crack found in Kyle Busch's Head and Neck Support device after last month's race weekend at Talladega Superspeedway did not compromise the performance of the apparatus, which could have been used in another event, according to tests concluded Wednesday by the company that manufacturers the HANS.

Jim Downing, a former sports-car driver who invented the device along with Michigan State engineering professor Robert Hubbard, said Busch's HANS suffered a 1-inch stress fracture at Talladega. NASCAR sent the device to Atlanta-based Hubbard-Downing Inc. for evaluation, where Downing said it performed just as it was supposed to in a series of tests.

"He got knocked sideways on one of his flips, and it sort of squeezed him," Downing said. "Right there is a point where it can crack. It has nothing to do with the ultimate strength of the HANS. In the normal direction a HANS works, which is 45 degrees left to 45 degrees right, it's just as strong as it ever was. In fact, we have the device now. We've pulled it and tested it and it goes right up to where it's supposed to fail. So it didn't affect the strength of the device at all."

Downing said he's unsure whether Busch's HANS cracked in the driver's flipping accident in the Talladega Busch race (watch video), or in the Nextel Cup wreck he was involved in the next day (watch video). Hubbard-Downing's findings have been forwarded to Steve Peterson, NASCAR's technical director and resident safety expert, who works out of the series' Research and Development Center in Concord, N.C.(nascar.com)