Attention turns to The Milwaukee Mile

The eyes of the race world turn from the Indy 500 to The Milwaukee Mile (TMM) for the running of the CART FedEx Miller Lite 250 and Toyota Atlantic races this coming weekend.

CART's best drivers will compete in what many on the circuit consider one of the more challenging courses in the country. The mile oval keeps the speeds down somewhat, but requires more skills by the drivers.

This is the 99th year of racing at TMM. Actually, the oval shows up on maps as early as 1876, designated as "Race Course" on what was a horse farm. Equine racing apparently was held at the site.

In the early years of the course, Barney Oldfield because a legend. In the 1930s, Rex Mays, who eventually would have a Milwaukee event named after him, starred on the track. Tony Willman, still considered by many to be the best racer ever from Wisconsin, also established himself at the track.

A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti and many other legends in the race world have competed at TMM in more recent years.

The track is in the middle of some major renovation. New seating has been installed on Turns 1 and 4. Next year, the grandstands will be replaced.

Kenny Brack won the Miller Lite 250 last season. He will be back to defend this season.

Practice starts Friday and is open to the public. On Saturday, the F2000 race will be the featured event.

The Miller Lite 250 starts at 11:45 a.m. Sunday. The Toyota Atlantic Race, which lasts 70 laps, will be run at 2:30 p.m. that day.

Let's hope the Wave's Tim Krause knows what he is doing. The firing of Ron Creten as CEO certainly flies in the face of those of us who thought the Wave were doing just about everything right.

It could be that the organization just couldn't handle two chiefs, and Creten had been the chief before Krause's group bought the team. The main ingredient for continued success of the team seems to be coach Keith Tozer. If Krause doesn't try to micro-manage how the actual soccer operations of the organization are conducted, and leaves that to Tozer, the Wave should still be fine.

Peter Horachek brings some great credentials to the Admirals head coaching position. Horachek, who was named the local hockey team's coach last Wednesday, is a former International Hockey League Coach of the Year.

He won championships with Trenton in the East Coast Hockey League and Orlando in the IHL. As a player, helped the Flint Generals win the IHL Turner Cup in 1983-84.

The Admirals, who missed the playoffs for the first time in 14 years, need to return to winning as soon as possible if they are going to make their recent ticket price slash pay off in attendance. Horachek looks to have the credentials to make that happen.

The UW-Milwaukee baseball team will play Nebraska at Lincoln, Nebraska, in the first round of the NCAA College Baseball World Series Friday. UWM won that right by beating U of I-Chicago, 6-3, Sunday and capturing the Horizon League championship.

UWM (36-18) will not have it easy against the Cornhuskers, who are 42-18 and will be playing on their home field. Marist (40-12) and Southwest Missouri State (41-19) are the other two teams in the Lincoln regional.

UWM will host the Horizon League basketball tournament next March 7-11. The Panthers, who play at the Klotsche Center during the regular season, will host the tourney at the U.S. Cellular Arena. UWM also might play a regular season game, perhaps against Butler, at the Arena.

This is a big deal for the UWM basketball program. Coach Bruce Pearl also will have several seniors back from a team that won 16 games last season, so the Panthers could be a force in the conference.

Shawn Green's 19 total bases and four homers last Thursday at Miller Park set and equaled major league records, but Green doesn't have anything on Brandon Brueggen of the Chaseburg-Coon Valley amateur league team in southwest Wisconsin.

Brueggen hit three homers and drove in 11 runs in a 14-3 win Sunday over Bangor in a Mississippi Valley League game. Green had only seven RBIs on his big day against the Brewers.