High Ride With Driver Lands Two in Trouble

Apparently, the state of Georgia frowns on certain forms of public transportation.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that two Georgia troopers were suspended without pay last week for giving NASCAR driver Bill Elliott a ride in their helicopter. They took Elliott from his home in Dawsonville, where he had dropped off an airplane, back to Blairsville, where he had parked his car.

State officials were none too pleased, especially because the troopers were supposed to be searching for marijuana fields.

Making matters worse, they let Elliott, a licensed helicopter pilot, take the controls during the two-hour trip.

No word on whether Elliott kept circling, looking for a pot stop.

Trivia time: Which team did the Rams play in their final game at Anaheim Stadium 10 years ago before moving to St. Louis?

He got sake-d around: Headline on a CBS Sportsline story about Roger Clemens, who won his seventh Cy Young Award last week, being the losing pitcher in a game between major league and Japanese all-stars.

“Cy-onara: Rocket loses vs. Japan.”

Firsthand info: There is no shortage of advice being given to Pedro Martinez, Jason Varitek and other Red Sox free agents, which has skewed heavily toward their staying in Boston.

The most interesting has come from former Red Sox pitcher Bruce Hurst: “It would be hard to walk away from this city. I would venture to guess that they’d miss it more than they’d realize.”

Hurst would know. He left the Red Sox after the 1988 season, signing as a free agent with the San Diego Padres.

Attention, Tony Hawk: A German has become the first person to cross Australia on a skateboard.

Dirk Gion covered the 1,850 miles on his kite-powered skateboard in 17 days, ABC News Online reported.

Gion said he was already working on his next challenge.

“Actually, now that I saw that you can really go far, you can make up to 300 kilometers a day if you have wind with a kite on a board like this, I want to build a special boat for the water and do it all around the world.”

Look for that in the next X Games.

A puck convert? Wrote San Jose Mercury News columnist Tim Kawakami: “It is when ESPN fills the programming void with repeats of ‘Dream Job’ that I truly realize how much I miss the NHL.”

Trivia answer: Washington, the Redskins winning, 24-21, on Christmas Eve 1994. It was the Rams’ seventh consecutive defeat that season.

And finally: Cris Collinsworth, an analyst on HBO’s “Inside the NFL” and a former Cincinnati Bengal, waded in as one of the few who like the Bengals’ new tiger-striped uniforms.

“Every time the Bengals go ugly with the uniforms, they win,” he said. “Seriously, you think back to 1981, my rookie year. They put the stripes on the helmet, everybody in football is laughing at us and we go to the Super Bowl. They come out with the ugliest uniform in the history of the National Football League on Sunday,” and beat the Dallas Cowboys.