230 M.P.H. Doesn’t Leave Much Time for Any Serious Thought

So just what do race car drivers think about when they are circling the track at Indianapolis?

According to the tongue-in-cheek (we hope) results of a survey by a Swiss watch company, some Indy drivers, including Scott Pruett, Stan Fox and Buddy Lazier, will be thinking about women and sex. Driver Tom Sneva said his thoughts will be on “sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll.”

The drivers were also asked what mental qualities set them apart from others. Brian Bonner answered that the predominant quality is “insanity.”

And while they all agreed that the best Indy drivers share a number of innate qualities, 8% named the quality as “stupidity.”

But this isn’t stupid: Bobby Rahal, talking about his college days in the late 1960s when a trend began to let students design their own courses: “I took a course called ‘Ski Resorts’ and spent the winter in Vail. But I even know of some guys who took a course called ‘Jamaica.’ ”

Trivia time: What was the first expansion team to win the Stanley Cup?

Some time ago: At the opening of a display of memorabilia belonging to 83-year-old Hall of Famer Ellsworth Vines, the legendary Fred Perry spoke of how far back the two champions go. “When we (played), the Dead Sea wasn’t even sick,” Perry said in Tennis Magazine.

Pass the compliment, please: In an interview with Pasadena Magazine, Dodger Executive Vice President Fred Claire was asked about his favorite restaurants. He replied that he would rather keep them a secret because he enjoys a certain amount of anonymity.

“I was at a local favorite spot having breakfast at the counter the morning after we signed Brett Butler,” Claire said. “There was a guy sitting next to me just eating and minding his own business and not paying any attention to me. After he finished, he got up and barely glanced my way and said, ‘Nice going, Fred. Good signing.’ I really appreciated that.”

An official brownout: After a bank of lights went out while the Baltimore Orioles were playing host to the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday night in their new ballpark, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Mike Littwin of the Baltimore Sun had these practical questions: “Does the ballpark come with a warranty? If so, did (team owner) Eli Jacobs send in that little white card?”

Littwin wrote that during the 20-minute delay during the third inning, stadium officials played “Dancing in the Dark” to soothe the crowd: “But then they came back with ‘The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,’ one of the five worst songs of the modern era, and it was a good thing the lights came back on or it really might have gotten ugly.”

Only in America: Tim McCarver, who was a peanut vendor for the Memphis Chicks of the Southern League before he played for them in 1960, will have his uniform retired there Monday. But then, McCarver is a part owner of the Chicks and the stadium had already been renamed in his honor.

A spectator sport: For some hard-core snow skiers living east of the Mississippi, life isn’t complete without a run down the extremely steep pitches at Tuckerman’s Ravine on New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington, New England’s highest peak. But the onlookers who sit on the rocks below can be merciless when a skier wipes out. “I like watching people fall,” acknowledged Peter McNealus, a ski coach in Vermont. “I make sure they’re all right, then I laugh.”

Trivia answer: The Philadelphia Flyers, who beat the Boston Bruins in six games in 1974.

Quotebook: New York Knick Coach Pat Riley on the team’s fans. “We gave them exhilaration. Good exhilaration when we won, bad exhilaration when we lost, but most of all exhilaration.”