Furniture Row Racing will employ a new over-the- wall pit crew for Regan Smith’s No. 78 this season.
Smith’s team announced Tuesday an agreement with Stewart-Haas Racing, which fields NASCAR Sprint Cup cars for Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman.
“We are excited to partner with SHR as it relates to the pit crew,” said Joe Garone, Furniture Row Racing’s general manager. “After reviewing SHR’s program, personnel and facility, we are confident that SHR will deliver a crew that meets all of our objectives.”
The No. 78 pit crew will be under the supervision of SHR pit crew coach Joe Piette, who also oversees the pit crews for Stewart’s and Newman’s 39 teams.
AFA Hall of Famers awaiting induction.
The Air Force Academy Athletic Hall of Fame’s third class of inductees includes former football star Scott Thomas and Chuck Delich, the Falcons’ all-time leading scorer in hockey and a former AFA head coach. The five- member class, announced Tuesday, will be inducted May 13 at the Colorado Springs Marriott.
Thomas was a consensus All-America senior safety with the 1985 Falcons, who completed a 12-1 season with a 24-16 win over Texas in the Bluebonnet Bowl.
Delich, who had 279 points and 156 goals in his hockey career, ranks 12th in NCAA career scoring. He was the Falcons’ head coach from 1985-97.
Other members of the 2011 class are the late Jim Conboy, the academy’s head trainer from 1955-98, former NCAA track champion Gail Gray and former Olympian Bob Nieman.
Gray was a two-time Division II champion in the 400 meters and the 800, and a six-time All-American from 1982-84.
Nieman was an All-America swimmer with the Falcons in 1969 and 1970 and a member of the 1976 and 1980 U.S. Olympic teams in modern pentathlon. He was the first American to win a world championship in modern pentathlon. Irv Moss, The Denver Post
Falcons hire assistant coach.
Air Force added Mark Crocco to its baseball coaching staff as an assistant.
Crocco coached the last two years at Wingate, where he played from 2005-08.
Roadrunners return to top 25.
Metro State (13-0) is ranked No. 21 in the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Division II top 25.
It’s the Roadrunners’ first appearance in the poll since March 2007. Fort Lewis (14-0) is ranked No. 3.
DU skier on Team USA roster.
University of Denver sophomore Andrew Dougherty, a nordic skier from Anchorage, Alaska, will compete for Team USA at the FIS Nordic World Junior Ski Championships in Otepaa, Estonia, from Jan. 23-30.
Dougherty had two third-place finishes at the national championships in Rumford, Maine, this month.
Rakhshani recalled.
The New York Islanders called up right wing Rhett Rakhshani, a former DU player, from Bridgeport of the American Hockey League in time for Tuesday’s 4-3 shootout loss to the Vancouver Canucks. Rakhshani played 17 shifts in almost 12 minutes of ice time, getting two shots, one takeaway and one giveaway. He finished a minus-1.
