t news: Seriously?The bags went without me! Radwanska marve

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- It took less than four laps for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to feel back at home in his race car. His test this week at Darlington Raceway was the final hurdle for NASCARs most popular driver to earn clearance to compete next season.The test ended months of speculation -- should Earnhardt retire? Was the risk of suffering yet another concussion too great? -- and a detailed medical plan helped get him back on the track when many thought he should just step away for good.When you get something taken away from you, you certainly realize what its worth, Earnhardt said Friday. Im feeling recharged and energized about coming back ready to race. Ive got a lot left in the tank.And he wants to make something perfectly clear: Earnhardt would not be climbing back into the No. 88 Chevrolet if his doctors had not assured him that hes healthy and his past concussion history hasnt put him at a heightened risk of permanent injury.I have a personal responsibility to myself. My health is number one. I am not going to take any unnecessary risks with my health, he said. I wouldnt be coming back to the seat and being excited to drive if there was any additional risk, other than the typical risk that every driver faces. I feel confident in what my doctors are telling me ... in me being able to withstand the normal wear and tear and getting into that unfortunate accident from time to time.Earnhardts lengthy history with concussions flared again this year after a crash at Michigan in June. He missed the final 18 races of the season and spent that time in intensive therapy meant to first help him control vision, balance and nausea. That lengthy process completed, his doctors focused on getting him ready to drive a car again, and it happened Wednesday at the South Carolina track considered one of the most demanding in NASCAR.He admitted to a sleepless night before the test, and an anxiousness to get inside his beloved Chevrolet the moment his feet touched the ground at Darlington. With neurosurgeon Dr. Jerry Petty on site, the Hendrick Motorsports team eased into the session.Earnhardt started with 15-lap runs, then climbed from the car to be assessed by Petty. As the day went on, his vision and balance were not only checking out fine, but improving after every run. Soon he was up to 30 laps at a time, he felt up to speed -- and he felt ready to race.Felt like an old shoe by the end of the day, he said. I felt really, really confident that by the end of the day, I was 100 percent ready to get back in the car.His clearance came as a boost to Hendrick Motorsports, which is already riding high after Jimmie Johnsons record-tying seventh championship. Hendrick made it through the second half of the season with a combination lineup of Jeff Gordon and Alex Bowman, and he insisted the sponsors who pay millions of dollars for Earnhardt to be in the car were concerned only with the driver getting healthy.Although Earnhardt will test again before the season begins at Phoenix -- and hes got a wedding to his longtime girlfriend on Dec. 31 -- he wont actually race until the events leading into Februarys season-opening Daytona 500. He will skip the exhibition race that kicks off Speedweeks at Daytona, not as a health precaution, he said, but because Bowman earned the right to race the car by winning the pole at Phoenix in November.Its owed to Alex, Earnhardt said.Earnhardt has worked closely the last few years with Dr. Micky Collins from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Sports Medicine Concussion Program. Its been Collins who first got Earnhardt healthy, then helped him get back into competitive condition.Collins has deemed Earnhardt healthy and ready to go, but Earnhardt will continue to work on many of the exercises hes received from the doctor for the sake of strengthening himself.This is from my doctors mouth -- I had to work really hard to be a human being again, to be normal again. The distance between just being myself and just being a race car driver, that was going to be another handful of exercises, he said. His advice was if I wanted to continue the exercises, it would only continue to strengthen the system. Hell, maybe this is something I could have been doing all along.---More AP auto racing: www.racing.ap.orgUnder Armour Moins Cher . Andrew Luck lost his favourite target and the Indianapolis locker room lost one of its most revered leaders when Reggie Wayne was diagnosed Monday with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee that will cost him the rest of the season. Basket Under Armour Soldes . LOUIS -- Mike Smith is used to facing plenty of shots, so this was nothing new. http://www.pascherunderarmour.fr/ . The parade and rally were held to celebrate the Saskatchewan Roughriders 45-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Sunday in the CFLs championship game. Under Armour Outlet France . Detroit and Boston are deadlocked, 1-1, and Tigers manager Jim Leyland could be forgiven if he was caught rationalizing instead of dissecting how his club could blow a 5-1 lead late in Game 2. Pas Cher Under Armour Soldes . -- The boos poured down on Tom Brady and the New England Patriots at the end of a horrible first half.RIO DE JANEIRO -- Agnieszka Radwanska, a player not known for outbursts on court, had plenty of good reasons to take out her frustrations on her racket in her first-round Olympic match.Fifty-five of them, to be exact -- the number of hours it took her to get from Montreal to Rio de Janeiro this week. She didnt arrive until Wednesday night, leaving far less practice time than she had hoped, and then she got sick, too.The fourth-seeded Radwanska played Saturday on the first day of the tournament and was upset by 64th-ranked Zheng Saisai 6-4, 7-5, with an uncharacteristic racket smash along the way.Its not helping with the score, unfortunately, but at least its good feeling that you have some power to break the racket, you know? Radwanska said.She spent much of this week feeling powerless against the vagaries of the airline industry. After losing in the round of 16 at Rogers Cup, she was supposed to fly out of Canada on Monday morning.First the delay was one hour, then two, then three. She finally boarded the plane only to sit on the tarmac for two more hours because the aircraft was too heavy, she said.The flight landed and I was running like hell through the terminal to try to make her connection. No such luck. Then she was running back the other direction to try to rebook.Eventually an airline rep told her she already had a new itinerary -- for Friday.Basically I wouldnt be on time for my match, she recalled thinking.I was looking at her like she was kidding, Radwanska aadded, her face strained at the exasperating memories.ddddddddddddShe waited in line for hours, spent just as long on the phone with her agent and others trying to find an alternative. The next morning, it was the same thing all over again. Meanwhile, she didnt have her luggage, which somehow was able to get on a plane to Rio even though she couldnt.Her reaction to that news: Seriously?The bags went without me! Radwanska marveled Saturday. I never heard of it.The only way to get from New York to Rio was to take a little detour -- through Lisbon, Portugal. Only about 3,000 miles out of the way.Radwanska spent five hours at Newark Airport to catch the late-night flight to Europe, but even when she finally landed in Rio, the saga wasnt over. What was supposed to be a 30-minute bus ride to the Olympic village turned into two hours because of a security scare.And perhaps not surprisingly considering all that aggravation, she soon started feeling ill. After 55 hours of travel, her singles tournament ended in 99 minutes. Radwanska still hopes to play mixed doubles for Poland.In the moments after her quick exit from her third Olympics, the 2012 Wimbledon runner-up couldnt find much humor in the situation.A lot of miles, a lot of points, she said dryly, noting that she had lost out on the chance of an award of incalculable value: Olympic gold forever. ' ' '