Quantum Leap

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. The historic Indy adventure and a week off behind them, the stars of the NASCAR Winston Cup series got back to business today.Davey Allison, the points leader as the season reaches the halfway point, was among the favorites to claim the pole for Saturday's Pepsi 400. He will be bidding for a sweep at the 2.5-mile trioval, having scored his first Daytona 500 victory Feb. 16.Allison was among nine drivers who tested their Fords and Chevrolets...

While staying in TV character seems to be the thing this season, other actors have made role reversals, at least in their on-screen careers. Maybe they all had midlife crises at the same time:* Most downwardly mobile: Peter Onorati, who was both sweet and sexy as a divorce lawyer on "Civil Wars," now is a laid-off aerospace worker in "Joe's Life." Stuck at home doing the Mr. Mom thing, he seemed much happier when his collar was white rather than blue."Joe's Life" is this season's refuge for the suddenly downscale: Mimi Kennedy, the snooty wife of the rich manufacturer in "Homefront," is on board as a waitress.

(New series in capital letters) Mondayp.m. `Fresh Prince of Bel Air`8:30-9 p.m. `Blossom`9-11 p.m. NBC Monday Night at the MoviesTuesday8-9 p.m. `I'LL FLY AWAY`9-10 p.m. `In the Heat of the Night`p.m. `Law & Order`Wednesday8-9 p.m. `Unsolved Mysteries`9-9:30 p.m. `Night Court`9:30-10 p.m. `Seinfeld` (New time)10-11 p.m. `Quantum Leap`Thursday8-8:30 p.m. `The Cosby Show`8:30-9 p.m. `A Different World`9-9:30 p.m. `Cheers`9:30-10 p.m. `Wings`10-11 p.m. `L.A. Law`Friday8-8:30 p.m. `Real Life with Jane Pauley` (New time)

A defense pathologist challenged the findings of the chief medical examiner's office yesterday in the second day of a macabre trial stemming from the discovery of a mummified corpse in an Essex home last year.Patricia Thomas, 51, is charged with homicide in the death of a disabled woman who checked herself out of a nursing home to move in with Thomas and her family. The body of Marion V. Cusimano, 66, was found decomposing in a bedroom by police last year after Thomas' husband called to report Cusimano's death 14 months after it occurred.

"Necessary Roughness" offers Scott Bakula a delightful starring role as a 34-year-old farmer lured back to college to play football.Mr. Bakula, who has made his mark as a time-traveling scientist in TV's critically acclaimed "Quantum Leap," has a laid-back quality that makes him a welcome, easy-to-take presence on the big screen.The film itself is a genial, slight, entirely predictable football comedy, but it serves Mr. Bakula well. Director Stan Dragoti goes along with writers Rick Natkin and David Fuller's modest intentions and doesn't try to inflate the material with false significance.

THE BALTIMORE Ravens have flown from their summer nest at Western Maryland College, but there's good reason for them to return next year. Six training camps at the campus in Westminster scored huge benefits for the pro football team and for the greater Baltimore community. Fan attendance during the four weeks of training camp was 111,000 -- nearly three times last year's total. The Super Bowl championship was expected to increase this season's visitor count, but no one predicted the quantum leap.

Perhaps no director has combined genius with coldness to quite the same degree as Stanley Kubrick. His epic head trip "2001: A Space Odyssey" is as beautiful as a diamond tiara but as warm and feeling as an anthrax germ.The movie, as stunning now (particularly on the Senator's big screen, where it opens today as part of that theater's 70mm film festival) as it was in 1968 when it redefined the concept of special effects, offers a view of the universe's significance and homo sapiens' insignificance.

A three-way land swap between a developer in Western Anne Arundel County and two county offices could mean a new elementary school for the Provinces community.While the deal awaits completion and still must be approved by the Board of Education, officials are reasonably sure the arrangement, proposed after two years of discussions, will work out."The problem has always been getting something for everybody," said Marshall Zinn, vice president of Curtis F. Peterson Co., developers of Russett, a planned 3,500-unit community being built at Route 198 and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway in Maryland City.

Thursday, C. Milton Wright's boys volleyball team seemed to take a quantum leap back to Oct. 17, 1989.Once again, they had to a chance to win the county title outright if they knocked off John Carroll in the season finale. Last year, the Mustangs lost the deciding match and landed in a three-way tie with John Carroll and Bel Air.Thursday the Mustangs were within a game of sole possession of the title when the ghost of October past began to dog them. The John Carroll reprise was short lived, however.

Bon Secours Health System yesterday named Christopher M. Carney as its chief executive officer.Carney had been acting CEO since September, and has held a variety of management positions with the Bon Secours system since 1981. He replaces John L. Fitzgerald, who resigned after a disagreement with the board about the pace of expansion.The system more than doubled in size in less than four years, going from six hospitals with 1,167 beds in 1993 to 15 hospitals with 2,728 beds now. With annual revenues of a billion dollars, the company also has seven nursing homes, along with primary-care clinics, hospices and home health care services.