North Las Vegas resident takes detour to Indy cars

A few years ago, Matt Jaskol decided to trade his dream of driving Indy cars for racing stock cars.

The former go-kart champion was prepared to race his Super Late Model again this season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway's Bullring.

But he ran into a detour.

The 22-year-old North Las Vegas resident's plans changed when he was asked a few months ago to test an open-wheel car in the Indy Pro Series.

He did well enough to earn a ride in the second and third Pro Series races of the year in St. Petersburg, Fla., with Michael Crawford Motorsports.

Jaskol posted one runner-up finish and was asked back by the team. He will compete in his third race for Crawford today at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where he qualified eighth Thursday for the series' 40-lap Freedom 100.

"I love the track," Jaskol said in a telephone interview after qualifying. "I didn't do as well as I wanted, but we beat some fast cars."

The race begins at 1 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN2.

This will be his first time competing on an oval track in the Indy Racing League's developmental series. Jaskol did win a Pro race three years ago on the Indy road course.

Jaskol is uncertain if he'll be asked to drive again in the series, but he does plan to return to the Bullring in early June.

"We're still looking for sponsors. If all goes well, I'd like to race in the Pro series on road courses and keep racing stock cars at the Bullring." ...

Indy Pro Series points leader Alex Lloyd, who has won this year's three previous races, will start second today for team owner Sam Schmidt of Henderson.

• OPEN WHEEL -- Jim Nabors will not attend Sunday's Indianapolis 500 and will miss singing "Back Home Again in Indiana" for the first time in 20 years.

He will address the race-day crowd on the speedway's video screens from his home in Hawaii and lead fans in singing the traditional prerace song. ...

Two-time IndyCar Series champion Panther Racing announced that ex-heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman and his sons will become the team's newest co-owners.

Panther Racing drivers Vitor Meira, Kosuke Matsuura and John Andretti will compete in the Indy 500.

• DRAG RACING -- Saturday's winners in the Jerry's Nugget Championship Drag Racing Series event were Chris Naffziger (Super Pro), Scott Horsley (Pro), Scott Parsons (Sportsman) and Jason Whitenack (Motorcycle).

Jacob Evans (Thunder), Tanner Theobald (Lightning) and Cody Topol (Novice) won NHRA Jr. Dragster titles.

There are no events this weekend at the dragstrip. Racing resumes with Wednesday Night Street Wars.

• SPORTS CARS -- Las Vegas-based Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning Racing won its first American Le Mans Series GT2 race of the season Saturday in the Utah Grand Prix at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah. Tomas Enge and Darren Turner combined for the victory in the team's Ferrari F430 GT.

• DESERT RACING -- A record 516 entries have been submitted for the 39th annual SCORE Baja 500, which begins June 2 in Ensenada, Mexico.

The number of entries almost ensures that it will be the first SCORE race with at least 500 teams.