INDIANAPOLIS -- Dario Franchitti needed two Indianapolis 500 victories to feel like a defending champion. Premier Ravens Jersey . Now hes getting used to it. Four years after winning a rain-shortened race, the Scotsman has returned to the venue of his two biggest wins with an opportunity to -- finally -- become a repeat winner. He never got that chance in 2008, leaving the comfort of IndyCars for the world of stock cars. "Its nice to talk about last year, but my job is to win this one," Franchitti said. "Yeah, Ive got a shot, and I think Ive got a good one." Franchitti already has a sense of what this month will entail. In March, NBA Hall of Famer Larry Bird presented Franchitti with his Indy 500 champions ring. A week later, he returned to Indy in hopes of knocking out some of the interview requests he expects to fill over the next two weeks. Hes been asked to do more sponsor appearances, will participate in a sold-out fundraiser Monday night to benefit Riley Childrens Hospital of Indianapolis, and three days later will celebrate his 38th birthday. Yes, its been a busy month, and if the rain actually stops this week, Franchitti will have be cramming in all of his on-the-track work before qualifying starts next weekend. In Saturdays abbreviated practice, he was fourth on the speed chart with a best lap of 224.107 miles an hour. More showers washed out the six-hour session scheduled for Saturday before any cars could make it onto the track, and rain is sprinkled into the forecast for most of this week, too. The good news is Franchitti is with a team, Target Chip Ganassi, and a teammate, Scott Dixon, who have endured the champions treatment before. "Youre definitely a lot more in demand and it takes some time away as well," said Dixon, the 2008 Indy winner. "As long as you get that managed well, and focus on the track, youll be all right." Franchitti could have sampled it himself after winning the 500 in 2007. But five months after the race and just weeks after clinching the first of his three IndyCar points titles, Franchitti left Michael Andrettis IndyCar team for Ganassis Sprint Cup team. It was a miserable experience. Franchitti failed to finish higher than 17th in his three warm-up races to close the 2007 season, then broke his left ankle in a Nationwide Series crash in 2008 at Talledega. The worst part was watching Dixon dominate the race at Indy with another ex-IndyCar driver, Max Papis, on Memorial Day weekend in Charlotte, N.C. "It wasnt so much about coming back and defending the title as it was driving in the Indy 500, and I missed that," Franchitti said. "You know, I had taken that into consideration when I made the move, but I was not quite as prepared for it as I thought." Things got even worse in 08. By midseason, Franchittis NASCAR sponsorship dried up and just 11 months after joining the Sprint Cup series, he gave up the experiment to return to the more familiar IndyCars. "Im sure he had regrets about not being here (in 2008), but Dario was trying to do a different discipline and looking toward the future and I talked to him quite a bit that year," Dixon said. "Im sure he would have liked to have been back here as defending champ, but thats why he had to go out and do it again." Since returning in 2009, Franchitti has been almost untouchable. He qualified third for the 2009 Indy 500, finished seventh and eventually won his second points title. Last year, he qualified on the outside of the front row again at Indy, had enough fuel to win the race and celebrate again with his wife, Ashley Judd, before clinching a third points championship in the season-finale at Homestead. Now hes on the cusp of making history. Only five Indy 500 drivers have won back-to-back titles -- Wilbur Shaw, Mauri Rose, Bill Vukovich, Al Unser and Helio Castroneves, who won in 2001 and 2002. And only one foreign-born driver, Castroneves of Brazil, has won three titles. Franchitti could put himself on both lists if he can defend his title for the first time. "Its certainly more intense and there are a lot more things to do. A day here, a day there, it all adds up, but the on-track stuff always comes first," Franchitti said. "And Id sure like to do it again." Steelers Sanders Jersey . Manager Ron Gardenhire says Mauer may need a cortisone shot to help with the pain, but only expects him to be out for a few more days. Jay Cutler Jersey . Drew Brees, the leagues top passer, had a pedestrian performance by his standards, throwing for 266 yards on 25-of-36 attempts with a TD and interception. Brees had passed for 320 yards or more, including 422 last week, in seven of the Saints first nine games this season. 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The five universities are East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST), Yunnan University of Finance and Economics (YUFE), Jilin University of Finance and Economics, Tianjin University of Commerce and University of Newcastle (UON). Authentic Jacoby Jones Jersey . Ovechkin had gone five straight games without a goal in the middle of October before scoring late in a 2-1 loss to Minnesota last Thursday. The two-time Hart and Rocket Richard trophy winner then posted two goals and an assist in Saturdays 7-2 thrashing of the Flames in Calgary. MANADO, Indonesia - Finally, after two years of effort to convince the world that ocean destruction is as much important as climate change effect, the World Ocean Conference (WOC) in Indonesia ended its session by issuing the Manado Ocean Declaration (MOD) on marine environmental protection on Thursday. The 21-point declaration was agreed in the conference as a roadmap to the next WOC meeting in Denmarks Copenhagen, and in the Kyoto Protocol and post-Kyoto Protocol talks. Related readings:  WWF warns risk of massive destruction by climate change  Climate change: EU, China have work to do  Study: SE Asia will be hit hard by climate change  Students tackle climate change  Tough climate change policy would benefit China Among the 21 points suggested in the declaration, the countries agreed to seek for long-term conservation, sustainable use and management of marine living resources and coastal habitats. They agreed to reduce pollution of ocean, coastal and land areas, and to promote sustainable management of fisheries in accordance with relevant international agreement. They also were in one voice in promoting the Large Marine Ecosystem approach that enhances institutional and international cooperation among countries that share marine ecosystems and resources.   Many studies showed that climate change is affecting ocean temperatures, the supply of nutrients from the land, ocean chemistry, food chains, wind systems shift, ocean currents and extreme events such as cyclones. Meanwhile, the oceans play a major role in the climate system. The oceans are huge storehouses of carbon dioxide. Microscopic plants (phytoplankton) extract carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. Warmer ocean temperatures could produce increased numbers of these plants, which could reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made the opening speech at the World Ocean Conference (WOC) in Manado, in Indonesias North Sulawesi province May 14, 2009. The World Ocean Conference ended its session by issuing the Manado Ocean Declaration (MOD) on marine ennvironmental protection on Thursday. Kids Cowboys Jersey. [Xinhua] Several times over the past century, scientists and environmental engineers have proposed spreading slurries of dissolved iron into the oceans in order to fertilize the waters and promote vast blooms of marine plants (phytoplankton). The phytoplankton consumes carbon dioxide as they grow, and this growth can be stimulated in certain ocean basins by the addition of iron, a necessary micronutrient. However, research performed at Stanford and Oregon State Universities in 2007 suggests that ocean fertilization may not be an effective method of reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a major contributor to global warming. Ocean fertilization, the process of adding iron or other nutrients to the ocean to cause large algal blooms, has been proposed as a possible solution to global warming because the growing algae absorb carbon dioxide as they grow. This process, which is analogous to adding fertilizer to a lawn to help the grass grow, only reduces carbon dioxide in the atmosphere if the carbon incorporated into the algae sinks to deeper waters But, study on the oceans function as the carbon absorber went on and many scientists believe that the ocean would help greatly to tackle climate change. The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) said that experts estimate that up to 40 percent of the C02 entering the atmosphere was being cycled through the marine environment which played a crucial role in moderating climate change. The World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) supported the claim by urging the world to save coral reefs, saying that a region harboring more than half of them were at risk due to major environmental and human catastrophe. The agency also warned that coral reefs would disappear by the end of the century if the world did not take effective action on climate change, which would result in 80 percent of declining ability for the regions coastal environment to feed people and the livelihood of around 100 million people would have lost or severely impacted. Finally, after the MOD was declared, surely we hoped that it would be followed by other talks and not only talks. An immediate action is badly needed. Wholesale Jerseys. Del Potro, who won four ATP tournaments in 2008, beat third-seeded Robin Soderling of Sweden 6-4, 6-3, while sixth-seeded Querrey recovered to edge David Ferrer of Spain 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4). ' ' '