Darrell Alderman

The Miami Hurricanes' football program was marked by guns, sexual assaults, drugs, drinking and clashes with police, the Miami Herald reported Thursday. Allegations of lax discipline surfaced earlier in the form of a Pell Grant scandal, a pay-for-play scheme and an inconsistent drug-testing policy. The latest disclosures could further tarnish the 63-9 record compiled by former coach Dennis Erickson before he left to join the Seattle Seahawks.

Shelly Anderson finished on a rim and a prayer in her father's top-fuel dragster, but it was enough for the former cheerleader from Royal Oak High in Covina to win the Chief Auto Parts Winternationals, opening event of the National Hot Rod Assn. season Sunday. Anderson, 28-year-old daughter of former racer Brad Anderson, was past the halfway mark in the finals against Rance McDaniel when her left rear tire exploded, sending the wheel over a retaining wall at Pomona Raceway.

Geoff Bodine lapped the field Sunday on the way to victory in the Tyson-Holly Farms 400 at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway. Bodine earned his third victory of the season and the 17th of his NASCAR Winston Cup career. He led 335 of the 400 laps on the five-eighth-mile oval, including the last 301. It is the first time a driver has won by more than a lap since Harry Gant's dominating victory in September of 1991 at Dover, Del. "It's a great team," Bodine said.

Bobby Labonte passed Dale Earnhardt Jr. with a little more than two laps remaining Sunday to win the Pennsylvania 500 at Long Pond, Pa., for his first victory of the season. The cars waged a magnificent battle for two laps until Labonte finally passed Earnhardt nearing the line at the end of the 198th lap at Pocono International Raceway. Both benefited when Jeff Gordon pitted to change a bad set of tires with 68 laps left.

Don "The Snake" Prudhomme grew up in Van Nuys and made his name in funny cars. He calls Pomona Raceway his backyard, and though the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis is the big cheese among drag racing events, the Snake still attaches a lot of value to the 42nd K&N Filters Winternationals. The owner of a three-car team won 10 races last season and would like nothing more than to begin his 40th year in drag racing with a season-opening victory today in the Powerade NHRA Drag Racing Series.

Dale Earnhardt knew Bill Elliott was going to win Sunday's Miller 400 unless something bad befell the leader. But when it did, Earnhardt wasn't in any position to gloat. "It wasn't good or bad. I didn't cheer or anything," Earnhardt said after winning the race at Michigan International Speedway, in Brooklyn. "I just gave a sigh of relief. "I knew there was the No. 4 car (Ernie Irvan) left to race. It wasn't over."

Dale Earnhardt held off challenges by Davey Allison and Bill Elliott in the final four laps to win the DieHard 500 at Talladega, Ala. Earnhardt, who won both races at Talladega in 1990 and finished third in May, was at or near the front throughout the 188-lap race on the 2.66-mile oval, leading seven times for 101 laps. He held off Elliott by a car-length to become the track's career victory leader with five.

The shouts of "one more time" for Harry Gant died out with nine laps remaining Sunday as Dale Earnhardt ended Gant's September magic. A broken brake lining ended Gant's run at a modern-record five consecutive NASCAR Winston Cup victories, consigning him to second place and cutting short a dominating show in the Tyson Holly Farms 400 that had the partisan crowd of more than 40,000 rooting him on at North Wilkesboro, N.C. It was the first time that Gant, from nearby Taylorsville, N.C.

In the quickest side-by-side race in National Hot Rod Assn. history, former sprint car champion Doug Kalitta of Ann Arbor, Mich., defeated Tony Schumacher of Mount Prospect, Ill., by eight-thousandths of a second -- .0081, to be exact -- to win the 19th Budweiser Shootout for top-fuel cars Saturday at Pomona Raceway. In one of the quirks of drag racing, Schumacher had the quickest time for the quarter-mile, 4.471 seconds elapsed time, to Kalitta's 4.479, but lost the race on reaction time.

Bill Elliott ended an improbable string of NASCAR futility, sweeping past Dale Earnhardt on Sunday to win the Southern 500 at Darlington, S.C. Elliott passed Earnhardt 13 laps from the finish and won by nearly a quarter-mile. It was Elliott's first Winston Cup victory since Nov. 15, 1992, at Atlanta Motor Speedway--a string of 52 races. Earnhardt finished second and Morgan Shepherd was third.