Talladega

LOS ANGELES -- The Will Ferrell comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby stayed in first place at the box office for a second weekend with $23 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates yesterday. Estimated ticket sales are for Friday through Sunday at United States and Canadian theaters, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. WeekendTotalNo. ofRankTitle (Studio)gross *gross*weeks 1Talladega Nights (Sony)$23.0$70.02 2Step Up (Touchstone)$21.

SUNDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS Pan AM Women's bask.: U.S. vs. Mexico ESPN29 NASCAR Sprint Cup: Talladega 500 ESPN2 Sprint Cup: Talladega 500 (T) ESPN2Midnight W. Series St. Louis@Texas (T) MLB1 Game 4: St. Louis@Texas 45, 58 C. foot. Liberty@Charleston Southern (T) MASN1 East Carolina@Navy (T) CBSSN2 East Carolina@Navy (T)

This will be a sentimental day for many as stock car racing and its fans focus on today's 500-mile race in Talladega, Ala. There, only six months ago, Dale Earnhardt provided the sport with what was perhaps its greatest racing finish in history, as he roared from 18th to first in the last five laps. Competitors, as well as fans, are recalling that race - and Earnhardt, who died on the last lap of February's Daytona 500. Today's will be the first restrictor-plate race, in which speeds are curtailed by limiting air to engines and rules conspire to bunch the cars, since that sorrow.

Once upon a time, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson were like blood brothers. Linked together, literally, chasing speed and the finish line as one. To the victor went the spoils. In Earnhardt's case, it was a pallet of beer for pushing Hendrick Motorsports teammate Johnson to victory at Talladega. But a few months later, any beer that's left will only chase down the misery of what happened last weekend at the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway. Johnson left Earnhardt hanging on the final laps of the race, after crew chief Chad Knaus called Johnson into the pits.

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- With two laps to go in the Winston 500 here yesterday, Harry Gant thought his day's ride was over.Throttle down and 21 seconds ahead of the field, Gant's Skoal Bandit Oldsmobile sputtered once. . . twice. . . then roared back to life.It was a sign for him to duck underneath Skoal teammate Rick Mast, off whom he had drafted for the previous 10 laps to conserve fuel, and hope for a friendly push.Having stretched his final tank of gas to the limit, Gant could only wonder along with the Talladega Superspeedway crowd of 105,000 if he had enough fumes for the final two laps.

Just for fun, try a Google search using the terms "Talladega" and "Big One. " You get about 195,000 hits. Talladega, site of the next NASCAR pit stop Sunday, is notorious for its parade of bumper cars flying through the air. The unpredictability factor is part of the suspense. A driver could be having a great day, and next thing he knows, he is airborne, with any chance of winning going up in the air as well. With only six points separating Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin in the Chase standings, the possibility of a Big One completely wrecking either guy's shot at a championship looms heavily.

TALLADEGA, Ala. - The heavy Alabama heat hangs low over the square of this old Southern town, rising from the pavement beneath the remnants of fancy opera houses and hotels built on the back of the railroad. It could be any other small town, fumbling forward through a century of economic spurts and hardships. And yet there is something different about this place, almost imperceptible at first, but there once you notice it: One in every 10 people who live here is blind or deaf. Largely a result of being home to one of the nation's oldest schools for the blind and deaf, Talladega has drawn people who are sight- or hearing-impaired.

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- When Davey Allison was an 8-year-old growing up down the road from here in Hueytown, he and his dad, Bobby Allison, would drive over to Talladega and watch the workers build this 2.5-mile super speedway."

Bobby Hillin was chosen as relief driver for injured Davey Allison in the DieHard 500 Sunday at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.Hillin will take over the Robert Yates Racing team's Ford after Allison starts the NASCAR Winston Cup Series race to earn points toward the $1 million championship. Allison had led the standings all season until his 11-flip crash Sunday in the Miller 500 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway enabled Bill Elliott to assume the lead by nine points.The accident left Allison with a broken right collarbone, forearm and wrist.

TALLADEGA, Ala. - Seldom if ever has a Winston Cup victory been harder earned than Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s was here yesterday. Indeed, his fourth straight win at Talladega Superspeedway may have been tougher than the first three combined. "This definitely is the sweetest, regardless of the controversy over going below the yellow line," he said, referring to the final hassle of the day. It was about the tactics of his winning pass, which could have cost him the race, if a NASCAR judgment call hadn't gone his way. With 3 1/2 laps remaining and Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth dueling for the lead down the backstretch, Earnhardt drove to the inside of them both, and took the lead.

NASCAR Nation remained relatively unscathed in the wake of the devastating storms that rocked Alabama and surrounding areas. There was a bit of minor damage at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Nothing much worth noting at Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Ala., which was fortunate to have escaped the wrath of nature twice in the span of a few weeks. Nationwide Series driver Eric McClure got the worst of it. He survived what he describes as the "most helpless and scary" moment of his life when a tornado tore through his home in Abingdon, Va. "It looks like a war zone, a minefield," McClure told reporters.

Anybody have Paul Menard in their Chase for the Cup bracket this season? Anybody outside of his immediate family likely would be lying if they said they did. But look here: Menard is 11th after eight races, with two top-five finishes and three top-10s. Who could have expected this from a journeyman driver who bounced in and out of three teams before settling in at Richard Childress Racing as the team's fourth driver? He finished 12th Sunday at Talladega, complementing fifth-place runs at Bristol and Texas and a ninth at Daytona.

Just for fun, try a Google search using the terms "Talladega" and "Big One. " You get about 195,000 hits. Talladega, site of the next NASCAR pit stop Sunday, is notorious for its parade of bumper cars flying through the air. The unpredictability factor is part of the suspense. A driver could be having a great day, and next thing he knows, he is airborne, with any chance of winning going up in the air as well. With only six points separating Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin in the Chase standings, the possibility of a Big One completely wrecking either guy's shot at a championship looms heavily.

Ryan Newman has theories about a lot of things, but his latest might make a lot of sense. "I was thinking about when I was out there, these shouldn't be points races," Newman said after crashing (as usual) Sunday at Talladega. "If they want to have these races for the fans, just let us come here and do this, but don't let it affect our championship because it's not racing." As it often does, Sunday's race in Talladega left many drivers wondering what role they play in the race itself.

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.

1 All NFL,: all the time: They might not be finished with Saturday's first two rounds when they start drafting again Sunday with Round 3 (10 a.m., ESPN, NFL). 2 Catch the fish: Now that the Florida Marlins have cooled off, can the world champion Phillies catch them in the NL East (noon, TBS)? 3 Catch a game: If it's half as nice outside Sunday as it was Saturday, go see the O's face the Texas Rangers at 1:35 p.m. at Camden Yards. 4 NASCAR,: anyone?: Juan Pablo Montoya (left)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Harold Kinder, stock car racing's best-known flagman, generally will be remembered for three things:* He was the only NASCAR official ever to have a fan club.* The good-natured way in which he took the frequent practical jokes and gibes of Winston Cup Series drivers, crewmen and broadcaster Barney Hall.* The courage he showed in maintaining his post and discharging his duty with Bobby Allison's airborne car approaching at 200 mph during the 1987 Winston 500 at Talladega (Ala.

Davey Allison, the 1992 Daytona 500 winner and a member of one of stock-car racing's most prominent families, died yesterday at Carraway Methodist Medical Center in Birmingham, Ala., of head injuries suffered in the crash of a helicopter. He was 32.Allison was piloting the craft on Monday, only three weeks after having purchased it, when it went down at the Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. He underwent surgery to relieve pressure on his brain, but never regained consciousness. Dr. Evan Zieger, a neurosurgeon at the hospital, pronounced Allison dead at 7 a.m.Red Farmer, also a driver and the only passenger aboard the helicopter, was listed in critical but stable condition, said David Smitherman, a hospital spokesman.