Columnist Ron Kantowski: IRL's Calkins seeks thrills on and off the track

Ron Kantowski's notes column appears Tuesday and Thursday. Reach him at ron @ lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

Like most of the drivers entered in Sunday's Vegas.com 500 Indy Racing League event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Buzz Calkins occasionally has had to pass Dr. Jack Miller, The Racing Dentist (honest), on the high side.

But unlike his Nomex-clad brethren, making a 200-mph pass of a guy who fills cavities for a living is not the craziest thing Calkins has done.

Far from it.

In 1991 for instance, Calkins participated in the famous Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Without his race car.

Last fall, he ran in the New York Marathon -- again, without his race car. He finished the New York 26.2 in 4 hours, 6 minutes and 13 seconds, with nary a pit stop. Calkins must be a raving lunatic, because he plans to run in Chicago's version of the marathon next month.

Actually, Calkins is an intelligent raving lunatic, because before this racing season he was admitted to the prestigious Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Calkins spent the day before this year's Indy 500 in class. The day after the big race, in which he finished 19th after running as high as eighth, he e-mailed in a class project.

Actually, the Kellogg School is having a better year than Calkins. It is ranked second in the nation among business schools by Business Week magazine. Calkins, who won the IRL's very first race, at Walt Disney World in 1996, stands 13th in IRL points heading into Sunday's race.

But if the IRL kept statistics on its most interesting drivers, Calkins already would have lapped the field (with the possible exception of Eddie "Points are for Sissies" Cheever).

So what's next on the 28-year-old's things-to-do list? Climb Mount Everest?

Exactly.

"I would like to climb Mount Everest," said Calkins, who will drive the Bradley Food Marts (a Denver-based chain named for his father, Brad Calkins)/Sav-O-Mat/G Force/Aurora in Sunday's race. "But you have to be a serious climber and put in a serious effort to do that.

"It's like the Indy 500. You have to pay your dues. You can't just go and do it."

He's right. Even The Racing Dentist had to first pass a rookie test.

* CHARLIE HOARSE: When it comes to media criticism, UNLV athletic director Charlie Cavagnaro is getting more sensitive than Richard Simmons. He sent out an e-mail missive to local media this week, once again trying to explain/defend the athletic department's decision to enter into a dubious television contract that he says is responsible for UNLV not getting all of its football road games on the air.

OK, so maybe UNLV is a bit hamstrung by the Mountain West's convoluted TV contract with ABC/ESPN and the new SportsWest network. But Rebel fans don't want to hear about bogus contracts. They just want to watch away football games on the tube.

Just as they do in Michigan or Tennessee or Nebraska. Or anywhere else they run a respectable college football program.

* AROUND THE HORN: I haven't seen Jim Palmer around these parts since he made an appearance for the Jockey underwear folks at the Fashion Show Mall about 10 years ago. But he's at Cashman Field this week, serving as a fully clothed ESPN analyst for the Triple-A World Series. Palmer and his broadcast colleagues spent much of Tuesday's telecast shamelessly plugging The Money Store, the outfit for whom the Hall of Famer now does most of his pitching. ...

He doesn't look so fearsome anymore, but I kind of like Mike Tyson's new/retro look. With the medium-length Afro, loud silk shirts and pointy collars, the menacing figure once known as "The Baddest Man on the Planet" is starting to look a lot like Lou Rawls. ...

Did you notice in Paula Del Giudice's outdoors notes in Wednesday's Sun that guys are now receiving tricked out pick-up trucks and prize packages worth $112,000 for winning fishing tournaments? Forget about a tennis racket or a 7-iron. Put a "Fishin' Magician" in your first-born's hands just as soon as he's ready. ...

On the same page, I saw where a boater at Lake Mead said the key to catching stripers is to first locate them with an "electronic fish finder." Wh-a-a-t? That sounds like a gadget Batman would pull out of his utility belt. And here I thought fishing was supposed to be a sport, not a way for Ron Popeil to make another fast buck. ...

The Detroit Red Wings are looking into reports that defenseman Uwe Krupp may have violated his contract by competing in several unauthorized sled dog races. Honest. Sled dog races. I swear I'm not making this up. According to the standard NHL contract, a player cannot participate in any organized sport without written consent from his team.

But it still sounds like a bunch of mush to me.

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