Indy 500 needs a woman driver to take the wheel

In practice however the event has been all but eclipsed by the souped-up stock cars that make up the NASCAR circuit. Last year's presidential election was, at least in part, defined by Senator John Kerry's attempt to win the hearts, minds and votes of the season's trendiest demographic, "NASCAR dads". That Kerry was unsuccessful was entirely beside the point; the mere existence of this putative voting block testified to the extent to which NASCAR, heavily promoted by Rupert Murdoch's Fox network, had become a leading player in America's sporting and political culture.

So, this weekend, the Indy Racing League could be forgiven for hoping that Danica Patrick takes the chequered flag at Indianapolis. If ever a sport needed saving, Indy racing is it. That the 23-year-old Patrick is a 5ft 1in, 100 pound woman is by no means incidental to this cause. The diminutive driver, who has the best chance any woman driver has ever had of winning the race, has a penchant for appearing in suggestive photo essays in magazines such as FHM that leave little to the imagination. Lots of leather, lots of skin and, er, that's about it.

As her fellow driver Bryan Herta noted this week: "She's hot." She was, in a stunning coincidence, the only Indy car driver to appear on David Letterman's chat show this week.

Patrick, who is making her Indy 500 debut, will start the race from fourth position on the grid, the best qualifying performance from a woman driver ever, as she bids to better Janet Guthrie's ninth place finish in 1978 which still stands as the high water mark for women drivers at Indianpolis.

Nascar's rise to prominence has only been one factor in Indy Car racing's decline. The acrimonious split in the mid-90s that saw the formation of rival Indy Car and CHAMP car circuits continues to bedevil the sport.

Given that Indy Cars lack a real star, Ms Patrick is the best and perhaps only shot it has.

A BRACE of sports movies are coming to a cinema near you. On the one hand, movie fans can, should they so wish, watch a remake of the Burt Reynolds flick The Mean Machine in which a disgraced and imprisoned former NFL quarterback leads a team of his fellow inmates to an unlikely, but satisfactorily violent, victory over a side comprised of the prison's psychopathic guards. Alas, the new version of the film stars the distinctly unbutch Adam Sandler in the leading role, stripping it of any credibility it might seek and denying it even the macho ludicrousness of the original.

More interesting is Ron Howard's new Russell Crowe vehicle Cinderella Man a biopic of Depression-era boxing champ Jimmy Braddock. This being a Ron Howard movie, it is drippingly sentimental but the power of Crowe's performance in the rags-to-riches, back-from-the-brink triumph over adversity, in the leading role makes up for that.

Braddock was considered a good bet to win the heavywieght championship before a sudden decline, brought on in part by a broken hand, reduced him to also-ran, bum status.

He left boxing, working as a longshoreman in New York and, eventually, relying on the meagre welfare crumbs handed out by the federal government for support before making his triumphant and gloriously unexpected comeback.

As the movie publicity points out, when America needed a hero, he arrived and defeated Max Baer to take the heavywieght championship of the world.

JAMAL Lewis, the Baltimore Ravens star running back, will be released from prison next week having served time for his part in setting up a cocaine deal. Lewis, named "offensive player of the year" in 2003, pled guilty in part to avoid the possibility of a ten-year prison sentence. His time in prison does not, at least according to his lawyer, seem have done him any harm.

"He's in great shape," said Jerome Froelich, who has visited Lewis in prison in Florida. "The officials there have been amazed at his attitude. He's volunteered to sign autographs for prison guards' kids, volunteered to do painting. He works in the prison tool shop. One guy told me, 'I wish every prisoner were like him'."