Curse costs Stewart

Driver fined for profanity on TV

Tony Stewart was fined $25,000 and docked 25 points by NASCAR on Tuesday for cursing during his television interview after his win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Stewart, who had just scored his second victory in three years at his hometown race track, was soaking up the adoration from the throng of orange-clad fans when he dedicated the win to them.

"This one's for every one of those fans in the stands who pull for me every week and take all the (expletive) from everybody else," he said.

The curse came on ESPN's first Nextel Cup broadcast since 2000.

NASCAR, which called the language inappropriate and said Stewart's actions were detrimental to stock car racing, also docked car owner Joe Gibbs 25 points. It follows a precedent that started in 2002, when crew chief Chad Knaus was penalized for cursing on TV.

Stewart is currently fifth in the standings, and the deduction didn't drop him.

Stewart has been feuding with ESPN, which criticized him two weeks ago for saying he was going to drink a case of beer to celebrate his July 15 win in Chicago.

An ESPN analyst said Stewart is not a good role model, and Stewart has been reluctant to do interviews with the network. He participated in the post-race interview at the finish line, but it ended after he used the expletive.

He wasn't happy when asked if he would be celebrating the Indy win with another case of beer.

"I don't want anybody from ESPN talking about how irresponsible I am, even though it's legal to do everything I did," he said. "Heaven forbid you actually have fun in life."

SPEED OUT: Scott Speed, the only American driver in Formula One, was dropped by the Toro Rosso team Tuesday and replaced by Germany's Sebastian Vettel.

Speed and fellow Toro Rosso driver Vitantonio Liuzzi are among seven drivers without a single point after the first 10 of this season's 17 races. The 24-year-old Speed, from Manteca, Calif., has failed to score a point by finishing in the top eight of any race in his two seasons in F1.

F1 has proved a tough challenge for American drivers as of late.

Since 1978, when Mario Andretti joined Phil Hill as the only American F1 champions, only a handful of drivers from the U.S. have found a seat in Formula One.

Eddie Cheever and Danny Sullivan never had any real success in F1 before going back to the States and finding fame and fortune. Michael Andretti, Mario's son, was already a star in the U.S.-based CART Series -- now Champ Car -- before he tried F1 in 1993.

Toro Rosso, a small budget F1 team, said the 20-year-old Vettel would replace Speed for the remainder of the season. Vettel has been a reserve and test driver with BMW Sauber, which agreed to release him for the move up to full-time F1 driver.

MCLAREN APPEAL GRANTED: Formula One's governing body will hear an appeal regarding its decision not to impose sanctions against McLaren for obtaining confidential information from Ferrari.

FIA president Max Mosley said Tuesday he was sending the case to the body's court of appeal to allow Ferrari to present its case and to ensure "public confidence" in the result. Previously, FIA had said no appeal was permitted.

After a hearing in Paris Thursday, FIFA ruled McLaren did possess secret Ferrari documents but did not punish the team because there was insufficient evidence the material was misused.

A 780-page technical dossier on Ferrari cars was found at the home of McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan, who has since been suspended. The Ferrari mechanic who allegedly supplied the documents, Nigel Stepney, was fired.

McLaren said Ferrari had waged a "thoroughly misleading press campaign" and that there was nothing new to discuss.