Nascar

Good morning -- NASCAR -- Just when we'd finally traded in all of our Winston Cup stuff for Nextel Cup, you change on us again.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.-- For a long time, Kyle Petty couldn't decide what he wanted to be -- race car driver, country music singer, motorcycle rider. And maybe that's why the son of King Richard, the man who set the all-time standard for success with 200 NASCAR victories, has managed just eight victories going into his 19th Winston Cup season.Or maybe, as some figure, the talent and competitive urge skips a generation, and it is Kyle's son, Adam, who will rekindle memories of Richard and great grandfather Lee."

If NASCAR fans and drivers have traditionally been dismissed by some northerners as southern rubes, then those so-called hicks got the last laugh with yesterday's television rights announcement.Starting in 2001, the stock car circuit will collect a reported $3 billion from Fox, NBC and Turner, effectively searing the sport into the nation's consciousness and placing it on a tier with the big four sports -- football, baseball, basketball and hockey.As Fox Sports chairman David Hill noted, NASCAR trails only the NFL in terms of regular-season ratings and is second to football in terms of deliverance to the all-important male viewer.

NEW YORK -- Park Avenue is glittering in holiday lights, and up on the 12th floor at No. 375, the NASCAR offices are humming. The new year is approaching, and NASCAR's outlook is very bright.NASCAR, the sanctioning body for the hugely popular Winston Cup Series, opened this office two years ago to put itself in the loop, so to speak. With Major League Baseball, the NFL, NBA and NHL offices only blocks away, prospective advertisers searching for a place to invest can enjoy one-stop shopping.

Hard-packed dirt. Flying dust. Grimy faces. The first images in the birth of a sport.Stock car racing started on the tiny bull rings of the south.Richard Petty can tell mind-bending stories about driving 500 miles on a quarter-mile dirt track.In the early days, the tracks were anywhere from a quarter-mile to a half-mile.It was on those rutty surfaces that stock car racing's soul was forged out of sheet metal rubbing side-by-side to a finish line.The short tracks have almost disappeared. The ones that are left are all about a half-mile in length, but they're paved now and surrounded by 100,000 seats.

From the start, the idea to brand his station as the place for local sports seemed like a good one to Channel 2 general manager Steve Gigliotti and it still does more than 1 1/2 years later.But Channel 2's new package of lacrosse telecasts has run smack against auto racing, angering NASCAR devotees in Charm City and environs. Gigliotti says he's attempting to make the best of a bad situation."I don't want the NASCAR fans to think I'm not listening to them. I hear them. I'm caught, and what I'm trying to do is appease as many people as I can," Gigliotti said.

In a simpler, quainter time in sports television, maybe 20 or so years ago, the event itself was king and the status of the competition provided a clue to the relative heft and talent of the announcer.That was then. Now, the home viewer can get a pretty good clue about how important a network considers an event by the level of the announcer assigned to it. When was the last time, say, Dick Vitale or Billy Packer worked a game with two lower Division I teams involved? Think there's much of a chance that Pat Summerall and John Madden would do an Arizona-Tampa Bay non-playoff game?

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- If Maryland was going to have a major-league racetrack, it should have it by now. Ten, 15 years ago, when Winston Cup stock car racing was beginning its growth spurt, that was the time to start thinking about building such a facility.And, through the years, various groups have tried. And failed. In the meantime, new tracks have been built in New Hampshire, Texas, California, Arizona, Florida, Indiana and Nevada. Several others are close to breaking ground.It's too bad that when Chris Pook came to Baltimore looking to develop a track in the mid-1980s, that he didn't hook up with Missy Berge, the woman whose money is behind the current proposed track.

If you want to get Bob Kersee animated, just suggest to him that his venture into Winston Cup Racing should be designed for the pure benefit of minorities in a sport that is nearly snow white."

Through the years, Mario Andretti has become one of motor sports' best-loved heroes.So it's fitting that the newest trophy to be handed out in the Championship Auto Racing Teams Fed Ex Series will be named for him. The Mario Andretti Trophy will go to the top point-getter on a new, year-end CART All-Star team.Even non-racing fans know Andretti's name and appreciate the Andretti talent he has displayed -- and still displays in endurance races. Over four decades he has been this country's most versatile and internationally known driver.

DOVER, Del. - - After routing the field to win NASCAR's spring race at Dover International Speedway, Jimmie Johnson returned for Sunday's 400-mile event on the one-mile, concrete oval in a different Chevrolet that his crew chief believed was even stronger. Chad Knaus miscalculated a bit, it turns out, but the upshot was the same. Johnson trounced all comers Sunday to complete a sweep of NASCAR's two Dover races and pare his deficit to teammate Mark Martin, who finished second, in pursuit of what would be a record fourth consecutive Sprint Cup championship.

Some say it's because she's an attractive woman and a sponsor's dream. Some say it's because she's hurdling barriers no other woman has in racing. Some say she lacks talent. Others say she has already proven that isn't true. But one thing is undeniable. Anywhere Danica Patrick goes, excitement follows. Autograph seekers, adoring fans and detractors do, too. Any event in which she participates - even if it's just a visit to a NASCAR Sprint Cup team's race shop - matters. Any race in which she competes is relevant to more than just the fans of that race.

DOVER, Del. - -The high banks of Dover International Speedway did on Sunday what the free market has been unable to: turn General Motors into a world-beater. Over the waning laps of the Autism Speaks 400, two of NASCAR's best drivers staged a thrilling battle of wits and horsepower in their high-octane Chevrolets, reducing the rest of the field of Fords, Dodges and Toyotas to distant afterthoughts. It was dazzling stuff, with Jimmie Johnson, who clearly had the superior car and engine, frantically making up ground after a botched pit stop dropped him from first to eighth with 35 laps remaining.

Daytona 500 2 p.m. [chs. 45, 5] For the nonaficionado of NASCAR, it always seemed odd the Cup season would start with the most important race. But the importance of Daytona is one of the constants in NASCAR when so much else has changed. It's a long run to the end of the season, and these days you need only to get into the "playoffs" for a shot at the title and then turn it on. However, this is the start of an attempt by Jimmie Johnson (left) to win an unprecedented fourth straight Cup championship.

NASCAR settles suit with former official auto racing NASCAR has settled a $225 million lawsuit filed by a former official who said she was subjected to racial discrimination and sexual harassment during her two-plus years working for the stock-car organization, the Associated Press has learned. The suit was settled during a Dec. 3 mediation held in New York between Mauricia Grant and NASCAR. Settlement terms were confidential. "We're glad to have the case settled on mutually acceptable terms," NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said yesterday.

Long gets fourth gold, wins 400 freestyle paralympics Middle River's Jessica Long took her fourth swimming gold medal and set her third world record of the Paralympics on her way to winning the women's 400-meter freestyle in Beijing. Long swam the fastest in the preliminaries, finishing in 4 minutes, 47.45 seconds and cutting more than five seconds off the world record she set in 2006. In the finals, Long's winning time was 4:50.17. "I wasn't expecting to add three seconds to my time [in the finals]

In her 50th race, Danica Patrick, the speed world's golden girl, had a golden ride. Nursing her fuel tank so that she had a few extra RPMs when she needed them, she flew by Helio Castroneves on the high side just a few laps from the finish and cruised to victory in the rain-delayed Indy Japan 300 over the weekend, thus making history as the first woman to win a major auto race. For Patrick, the whirlwind is just beginning. In an interview on ESPN after the race she said she had initially intended to spend an evening enjoying Tokyo but that winning Saturday's race changed her plans.

Last year, Stewart suggested that NASCAR races were rigged, contending that the race organization latched on to flimsy excuses, such as minor debris on the track, to wave a caution flag. After some stern words from the great god NASCAR, Stewart said he didn't mean it. But like a little kid who's chronically in the cookie jar or kicking over other kids' sand castles, you knew he'd be at it again. In a comparison that appeared all over the media last year, Jeff Gordon called Stewart "the Rosie O'Donnell of NASCAR" because of his penchant for inciting controversy.

Good morning -- NASCAR -- Just when we'd finally traded in all of our Winston Cup stuff for Nextel Cup, you change on us again.

Good morning -- Hendrick Motorsports -- You trying to be the Yankees of NASCAR?