Race

In the most recent Sun poll, "undecided" was neck-and-neck with the leading candidates for City Council president. That a large number of voters are claiming no decision in this race is understandable. People may be having difficulty choosing between two able but relatively unknown candidates: incumbent City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and community activist Michael Sarbanes. So, this indecision is a good thing for our democracy. It means voters are taking care in deciding which of the two to support.

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Jimmie Johnson won his second consecutive NASCAR Nextel Cup championship by driving a conservative, incident-free race and finishing seventh behind winner Matt Kenseth in the season finale yesterday. Kenseth, perhaps the second-hottest driver behind Johnson in recent weeks, was dominant in winning the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where he led 214 of the 267 laps. Johnson's title capped one of the strongest seasons for a NASCAR driver in the sport's modern era. The El Cajon, Calif.

Bad winter weather that caused Laurel Park to cancel four of its scheduled 75 race days during its winter meet contributed to disappointing meet-ending numbers released yesterday by Magna Entertainment Corp. "We saw it coming as the meet progressed," said Lou Raffetto, president and chief operating officer of the Maryland Jockey Club, as he watched a race during Pimlico Race Course's opening yesterday. "The weather was pretty brutal ... during February, and March and we had to cancel closing day."

While the medals are fresh and the muscles still sore, a round of applause is due not only to the thousands of participants in Saturday's glorious marathon festival but also to the thousands more friends, family members and Baltimore neighbors who cheered the runners on. Spectators contribute mightily to the success and enjoyment of long-distance races in ways even they may not understand. Their critical role cannot be overestimated. At base, of course, they bear witness to the achievement.

The state's major spring steeplechase season concludes today with the 111th running of the prestigious Maryland Hunt Cup in Glyndon. And entering the $75,000 race, the story is as much about a jumper who isn't competing and one who hasn't competed well this spring, as it is about those who might contend at the four-mile, 22-obstacle course. Bubble Economy, last weekend's Grand National winner, will not run, so a newly offered $30,000 bonus to the winner of both races will go unclaimed.

David Askew isn't one of those fair-weather sailors. Two summers ago, the Annapolis resident stayed in the Governor's Cup Yacht Race when a squall of heavy lightning, rain and winds spurred more than two dozen others to drop out. Some have said it was one of the toughest races in the more than three-decade history of the annual 70-mile regatta - with fewer than half of the 161 boats in the race finishing within the 21-hour limit - but that didn't deter...

With the sound of cheers from his family and well-wishers filling his ears, Brian Boyle finished the Ford Ironman World Championship in the warm Hawaiian darkness, three years after his near-fatal car accident on a rural road in Charles County. Wearing bib No. 163, the 21-year-old St. Mary's College student crossed the finish line of the triathlon in Kailua-Kona on Saturday in 14 hours, 42 minutes, 25 seconds. His time placed him 1,513th out of 1,850 competitors. "It was the greatest day of my life," Boyle said by phone.

A federal jury has ruled that Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. discriminated against a white former maintenance manager at its old Landover coffee-roasting plant because of his race and awarded him $24,200 in expenses, with the recommendation that he be paid another $61,000 in back pay. In his reverse discrimination suit, John Sullivan said he was hired in 1999, only to be demoted and replaced by a black subordinate. He claimed an African American supervisor fired him in November 2002 because he is white.

The three years that passed since John Itati ran through the streets of Baltimore didn't tarnish his memory. The same mile marker brought the same surge past the rest of the field and the identical feeling that he couldn't lose. Itati, a native of Kenya, won the men's marathon yesterday in the seventh annual Under Armour Baltimore Running Festival, taking the lead at the 15th mile and finishing almost four minutes ahead of countryman Josphat Ndeti. Another Kenyan, Gladys Asiba, won the women's marathon in a much tighter race, finishing less than a minute ahead of Anastasiya Padalinskaya of Belarus.

The city has lost one of its flagship fall events to Baltimore County. The annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to benefit breast cancer treatment and research is moving to Hunt Valley, organizers are scheduled to announce today. They pointed to scheduling complications with the National Football League over the use of M&T Bank Stadium. Its parking lots have served as the race's staging area and finish line for six years. Robin Prothro, executive director of the Maryland affiliate of the newly renamed Susan G. Komen for the Cure, said the annual April release of the Baltimore Ravens' home game dates left too little time to plan and publicize the race and recruit vendors for the site.

TALLADEGA, Ala. - -It was with this racetrack in mind that the No. 48 team built its lead throughout NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup. Everybody knows anything can happen at Talladega. A team's championship chances can end here, lost in the wreckage of a massive accident, as they did for Carl Edwards last season. Four races remain in the Chase. And this weekend, the Sprint Cup Series will be run at Talladega Superspeedway, a track known for its big unpredictable wrecks, where driver ability and team quality means less than in most places.

A late-season surge helped the Mount Hebron boys win the region and state titles last fall. The No. 3 Vikings are hoping for more of the same this season, and they started their push with an impressive victory in Thursday's Howard County title meet at Centennial. Mount Hebron was led by Constantine Matsakis (fourth) and Russell Buescher (sixth). Kevin Mertz (14th), Karthik Venkatraman (16th) and Stuart Russell (24th) also contributed as the Vikings' 64 points were enough to beat defending champion Atholton (90)

Lindy Redding should have a sign: "Have horse, will travel," because the 75-year-old owner and his 5-year-old brown gelding think nothing of loading up and driving to tracks all around the country - if the race is right. "They're a couple of characters," said trainer Donald Barr, as he handed Ravalo a couple of peppermints. "This is a very special horse, and there are never too many peppermints for him. He'll eat them as long as you stand here offering them to him. And when he sees his owner drive up with the horse van, he thinks he is going somewhere and he starts to yell and scream.

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.

Zina C. Pierre, the Annapolis mayoral candidate dogged by personal financial problems and questions about her residency, announced Wednesday for the second time in five days that she is quitting the race . During a news conference, Pierre, a political consultant, attempted to explain her financial problems - including a house that went into foreclosure and several lawsuits from unpaid debts - by saying that she stretched herself too thin as an entrepreneur and...

You are such a racist nigger."- reader e-mail To answer your questions: Yes, the e-mail is quoted in its entirety. Yes, it's authentic; I received it a year or so ago. And, no, it is not unique in its sentiment, its coarseness or its deafness to irony. That note has always struck me as a stark benchmark of our slide into racial incoherence. Here's another: Last week on "FOX & Friends," Glenn Beck, the FOX News host, declared President Obama a "racist" with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.

The spat between Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. and Cambridge police officer James Crowley quickly escalated into the latest national conversation on race in America. But the more I read about and reflect upon what happened, the conflict seems less the result of an asymmetry in the melanin levels of the two men than of unusually high levels - on that day, on that porch - of testosterone. Let's start with Professor Gates. Based on his own statements in the days following the incident, we learned that he had just returned, after a one-day stopover in New York, from a trip to China.

What exactly are we envisioning for the big IndyCar race proposed for Baltimore in 2011? Speeding cars skidding around street corners? The smell of burning rubber and fuel filling the air? Wild-eyed crowds packing the sidewalks? Don't we already have that around here? It's called: Saturday night in Fells Point when the bars close. (BA-DA-BOOM!) On the other hand, I'm all for anything that brings people downtown in sufficient numbers that it deters the degenerates who have been roughing up tourists and natives alike lately.

Great Races, Incredible Places: 100+ Fantastic Runs Around the World Bantam, $16 Running around the world is an obsession to Kimi Puntillo. She has participated in every race known to mankind, or so it seems, from 1-mile runs to marathons. In fact, she has run a marathon on every continent. In this gift to runners everywhere, Puntillo describes 100 races around the world, such as a marathon and half-marathon in Antarctica. Getting there, she says, is not easy, nor is it for anyone who needs crowds to cheer him or her on. "The only onlookers I saw were three parka-clad Chileans, singing and clenching a bottle of vodka, who offered me a cigarette."

JOLIET, Ill. - -The promo for Jimmie Johnson's three-DVD self-help program - "Winning at Confidence: Jimmie Johnson's Success Guide to Success" - begins with cheerleaders jumping beside the three-time reigning NASCAR champion and chanting "Winner!" Then Johnson defeats an elderly man in arm wrestling by using both hands. With former NFL defensive back Jason Sehorn, he routs two boys in football. Then he dusts singer Nick Lachey in a race - Johnson driving a sports car, Lachey riding a bike.