For Him, Road to Super Bowl Was Smoother

Which is the more difficult to win, football’s Super Bowl or stock car racing’s Winston Cup championship?

Joe Gibbs has won them both. His answer:

“It took us nine years to win the Winston Cup [with Bobby Labonte in 2000]. We’d won three Super Bowls [with the Washington Redskins] in nine years.”

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Trivia time: What do Gibbs and New York Giant Coach Jim Fassel have in common, other than taking their teams to the Super Bowl?

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Racing junkie: When Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks has a few spare minutes, he spends them browsing the Web, looking for auto racing news, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal.

“Going online permits me to catch up on the latest racing news between the challenges that consistently arise in my profession,” Parks said. “One of the sites that allows me to indulge in this passion is Thatsracing. With daily updates . . . I am always up to speed, even if I’ve missed ESPN or the sports pages for weeks.”

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All in the name: Riverhead Raceway, on Long Island in New York, had a truck race called the Ideal Cesspool 200.

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Get a ticket: If Fassel’s Giants win the Super Bowl today, it may be because they’ve traveled in many ways. Among the coach’s quotes:

“I’m driving the train, and all you’ve got to do is listen and follow along.”

“I’m driving the bus. Follow along. I don’t want any variation of what I’m saying. I’ll take full responsibility . . . whether we win, whether we lose.”

“This is a horse race, and we’re coming around the far turn and I see the finish line.”

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Different game: Anyone out there remember when basketball had a center jump after each basket? That was the way it was done before Oct. 20, 1937, when a new rule called for the ball to be put in play out of bounds by the team that had just been scored on.

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No bargain: Bud Shaw of the Cleveland Plain Dealer calls Shawn Kemp, who will make $11.7 million this year and is guaranteed $58 million more, “basketball’s answer to the [Pentagon’s] $450 wrench.”

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Yogi talk: Ralph Kiner, the former Pittsburgh slugger now doing Met broadcasts, recalled that before the start of spring training one year, Yogi Berra was asked what size cap he wore.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I’m not in shape yet.”

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Trivia answer: Both played football at Southern California junior colleges. Gibbs was a defensive end at Cerritos in 1959 and ’60. Fassel was a quarterback at Fullerton in 1967 and ’68.

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And finally: Market value for the Chicago Cubs’ Sammy Sosa, says the Chicago Tribune’s Rick Morrissey, is “the most agent Adam Katz can get for a commission or, short of that, enough to pay for that little chalet Katz has his eye on in Aspen.”