Laila Ali

Auto racingRahal team rolls out `Late Show' carpet for Brack's moveKenny Brack was welcomed to Bobby Rahal's CART racing team yesterday by David Letterman, a chorus line, Don Rickles and a musical number by Paul Shafer's band.The videotaped interlude in Hilliard, Ohio, accompanied Rahal's announcement during a news conference that Brack, one of the IRL's top drivers, was joining the team. Letterman is a co-owner of Team Rahal.Brack, 33, spent three seasons in the IRL, winning the driving title in 1998 and finishing second this year.

Et Cetera ACC title-game deal what the Dr ordered The Atlantic Coast Conference finally has its football championship game like the Big 12 and Southeastern conferences. Now the ACC will even have the same title-game sponsor. Soft-drink brand Dr Pepper has reached a five-year agreement with the ACC and ABC Sports to sponsor the title game. BCS ratings: Meeting in Phoenix to begin working out a new ratings formula, Bowl Championship Series delegates concentrated on the issue of transparency - whether to begin publicly identifying how members of the coaches poll voted.

It's certainly tempting to take a swipe at auto racing legend Richard Petty for his latest rant about the supposed inability of women to compete behind the wheel, but I'll just let Danica Patrick do the talking today in Indianapolis. Petty was just saying what pretty much all the old-school NASCAR types probably think whenever they see a woman in a firesuit (right after they think "Ooh, nice firesuit," of course): "Auto racing has always been a man's game, little lady, so why don't you just go down to the picnic area and whip me up some cornbread?"

BOWIE - Left-hander Nikki Eplion told Laila Ali earlier last week that she would not only lift the super middleweight champion's International Boxing Association title, but also take "all of your houses, all of your money, everything you have away from you." But Eplion left Prince George's Stadium empty-handed last night, as the youngest of Muhammad Ali's seven daughters took the challenger's heart by stopping her at the 1:30 mark of the fourth round. Ali, 26, who is 17-0 with 14 knockouts, defended her 168-pound title for the fifth time before a crowd of more than 7,000.

When Christina Vassileva isn't at Johns Hopkins Hospital's Weinberg intensive care unit, where she often works 24-hour shifts caring for cancer patients, she's usually at the Baltimore Boxing Club, studying the "sweet science." "I originally went to the gym to catch up on my kick boxing and work out," said Vassileva, 27, the 1993 national collegiate tae kwan do champion who is in her fourth year at Johns Hopkins Medical School and plans to be a surgeon. At the urging of Jake Smith, owner of the boxing club, Vassileva decided to give boxing a shot.

This summer, as they have for the past two years, some patient and diligent Waverly-area children have been assembling the Enoch Pratt Free Library's Waverly branch at 33rd and Barclay streets. They are learning the disappearing art of letter writing. Every few months, they compose and send correspondence to fellow students they've never met in Maryborough, Australia, a town of 8,000 residents in the sheep-raising country outside of Melbourne."I've never had a group of children who were as motivated and as persistent as these are. In an age when it's difficult to get children to read, these children are writing as well," said children's librarian Linda Schwartz.

WASHINGTON - Former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman was in a surprisingly good mood after Saturday night's Tyson Train Wreck, especially for a guy who had just watched a couple million dollars fly right out the window. If Mike Tyson had beaten Irish journeyman Kevin McBride at MCI Center (and he was leading the fight when he quit after six rounds), he almost certainly would have shown up on Rahman's dance card at some point. There are only so many money fights in the strange heavyweight division, so watching Iron Mike go wobbly after six rounds against a guy with a green no-bling championship belt from Ireland (home of, count 'em, no native-born world heavyweight champions since the 19th century)

As Josh Groban's "So She Dances" played, Vickie Bath and her dance instructor, Gabe Gamboa, swirled across the wood floor, sometimes forward, sometimes backward, every step silken-smooth. Bath kicked one blue-jeans-clad leg high in the air, then stopped and watched Gamboa demonstrate a step. "One, two three. One, two, cross. I know," she said, and the two whirled off again. Bath, 56, has been an Arthur Murray pupil with Gamboa for about seven years, she said. Until recently, the Clarksville resident traveled to Silver Spring for instruction.

THE MISCHIEF started when 6th District Councilman Melvin Stukes attended the annual City-Poly football classic in November. He had his daughter with him, 13-year-old Marian Stukes, a student at Francis Scott Key Middle School. "I saw a lot of girls screaming and hollering and talking about the stats and getting really excited," Marian told members of the Baltimore City Council's education committee Wednesday evening. Marian's dad is the committee chairman and had decided to tackle the issue of whether city public schools should field football teams for girls.

It was a little more than nine months ago that a slick-boxing Henry "Sugar Poo" Buchanan caught the eye of ex-world champion Sugar Ray Leonard during a sparring audition for an upcoming reality boxing series called, The Contender. A skillful super middleweight (168 pounds) with fast hands and feet, Buchanan, 26, of Washington, mimicked Leonard's famed "bolo" punch during the audition, staggering his stocky opponent from North Carolina. "I love the public, and once they get to know me, they'll love me, too," said Buchanan, who was 2-0 with as many knockouts at the time.