Etc...

Because I can, that's why

Spring climbing season on Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, closes this weekend, and it has been - you should pardon the expression - breathtaking. Usually, reaching the 29,035-foot summit takes four days. But last Friday a Sherpa guide from Nepal, Pemba Dorjee, scrambled to the top in a record 8 hours and 10 minutes - and that was his second ascent in a week. Then there's Appa, a fellow Sherpa who uses only one name. He scaled it May 17 ... for the 14th time, another record.

By definition, auto racing is about speed. At the Indian-apolis 500, the sport's premier event, it's about blinding speed. Buddy Rice, the pole-sitter for this year's May 30 race, captured the coveted inside front-row position by posting a four-lap (10-mile) average of 222.024 m.p.h. in qualifying. Even two of the slower qualifiers sped around the oval at 213 to 214 m.p.h. By comparison, Ray Harroun's winning speed at the first "Indy 500" in 1911 was 74.602 m.p.h. The progression of winning speeds and the drivers who posted them, at 10-year intervals, since then:

1920 Gaston Chevrolet 91.55
1930 Billy Arnold 113.26
1940 Wilbur Shaw 127.06
1950 Johnnie Parsons 132.04
1960 Jim Rathmann 146.37
1970 Al Unser 170.22
1980 Johnny Rutherford 192.52
1990 Arie Luyendyk ...223.30
2000 Juan Montoya 223.37
- indy500.com