Rudd to return on Saturday

Driver may not run entire race

Ricky Rudd will get back behind the wheel of the Robert Yates Racing No. 88 Ford this week at Lowe's Motor Speedway after missing five weeks with a separated shoulder.

"My shoulder still is not at 100 percent yet," said Rudd, who will retire at the end of the season. "But we're going to have to see how it handles being in the car for practice."

Rudd separated his left shoulder in a Sept. 2 wreck at California Speedway. It was the first time the 50-year-old Rudd, who recently started his 900th race, missed a race because of injury.

He sat out last year -- racing once as an injury substitution for Tony Stewart -- and returned to a full schedule this season.

Rudd, who was replaced by brothers Kenny and Mike Wallace, said he isn't certain he's ready to run the full 500 miles Saturday night.

"I won't know if I'm going to be able to run the whole race until we get there," he said. "But I would not have gotten back in the car if I didn't feel I had a very realistic chance."

SORENSON HIT WITH PENALTY: Reed Sorenson was docked 25 driver points and crew chief Jimmy Elledge was fined $25,000 and placed on probation until Dec. 31 by NASCAR for rules violations found after Sunday's UAW-Ford 500 at Talladega, Ala.

Sorenson finished 10th in the No. 41 Dodge, but the car was picked at random for postrace inspection and was found to be too low to meet NASCAR's minimum height requirement.

Team owner Chip Ganassi also lost 25 owner points.

FRANCHITTI IN TRUCK AT MARTINSVILLE: A NASCAR Truck Series race will be the next step for Dario Franchitti in his preparation to take over the No. 40 Dodge in the Cup series next year.

Franchitti, who is the reigning Indianapolis 500 champion, will enter the Kroger 200 on Oct. 20 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway in a Dodge. Brian Pattie will serve as crew chief on the truck owned by Cunningham Motorsports.

ALONSO QUESTIONED: Reigning Formula One champion Fernando Alonso was questioned by prosecutors Tuesday in the Ferrari spy scandal.

The McLaren driver was not under criminal investigation but was considered to have knowledge of the facts in the case, ANSA news agency reported.

Alonso, who won the F1 title in 2005 and '06, spent more than two hours in the prosecutors' office in Modena and left without making any statement to reporters.

The Spaniard is second in this season's standings with 103 points, four behind fellow McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton with one race to go.

The scandal has overshadowed the second half of the season.

McLaren was fined a record $100 million by the World Motor Sport Council on Sept. 13 after a separate investigation by Formula One's governing body FIA found McLaren guilty of using leaked data from Ferrari.

The FIA investigation centered on phone records and a trail of e-mail exchanges, which included correspondence between McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa and McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan, and De la Rosa and Alonso.

McLaren was kicked out of the manufacturers' championship by FIA, but Alonso and Hamilton were not docked points. Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen is third in the standings with 100 points and still has a chance to win the title at the Brazilian GP on Oct. 21.