Surrounding our Thanksgiving holiday the sports pages of New York dailies and area TV sportscasts overflowed with detail of the feelings held by fans and officials of New Jersey’s Giants Stadium, just across the Hudson River from New York City, on the burgeoning half-time practice of boozed-up male fans looking down on the stadium’s entry walkways and shouting at upcoming females to bare their breasts. A TV newscast tease was headlined, “Jets Fans Demand Breasts,” and if none are bared empty plastic water bottles were tossed downward accompanied by yelled expletives. For the occasional female flasher, rousing cheers burst forth. One busty obligee said in an interview, “It’s my body and I’m proud of what I have.” U.S. fan groups and stadium officials are pondering ways to put an end to this practice. But things are different in Australia. At last month’s Lexmark 300 race in Surfers Paradise, featuring the local V8 SuperCar set and the visiting open wheelers of the Champ Car World Series, many young ladies headed for Hairpin Hill to check out the beer-addled but muscular lineup of bare-chested males grinning in their direction. An area newspaper, The Bulletin, suggested female fans seek out this display of sun-drenched masculinity — said to be from New Zealand — calling it a “highlight of this annual event.” One topless Kiwi admitted he and his buddies were there only for the beer and the babes, saying “The car racing is just vroom-vroom in the background,” adding “I’d pay to get drunk with 300,000 people any day in the week.” Despite this novel attraction, the spectator turnout for this year’s Lexmark event was below expectations and its IndyFest organizers have been told to come up with a more creative crowd-pulling format for its 2008 renewal. Extremely high temperatures had a negative effect, particularly on evening events held in support of the daytime on-track activities.

More Mansell! The sons of former F-1 and CART champion Nigel Mansell of England have agreed to drive for American-based Aussie team owner Derrick Walker in next year’s Champ Car Atlantic Series. With karting, British F-3 and BMW UK experience, the brothers Mansell, Greg, 20, and Leo, 22, will join Canadian Kevin LaCroix on Walker’s three-car Atlantic team. 

Sports business writers say the $340 million Bruton Smith, head man at Speedway Motorsports, Inc., is paying Bob and Gary Bahre for their New Hampshire Int’l Speedway is too much, calling it a buy of two Cup dates, rather than the purchase of a race track. The common belief is Smith will move one Cup date from the 101,000-seat New Hampshire track to SMI’s Las Vegas facility, which seats 140,000. 

It was with great pride that we learned Jerry Gappens, who started his racing career as an editorial assistant at this newspaper and departing as operations manager, has been named head man at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.     

A pat on the back of Jon Stanbrough for being named Driver of the Year for the third time by members of the Hoosier Auto Racing Fans Club. The club’s 56th  annual awards banquet is set for noon Sunday, Jan. 27th, at Celebrations on Country Club Road in Indy. Call Vicki at (317) 487-8096 for ticket info. Don’t wait; it’s an annual sellout.

It’s awards-dinner season again — starting Saturday the 7th at the Portofino Bay Hotel in Orlando, Fla. — where Carl Edwards and his fellow NASCAR Busch Series achievers, dolled up in tuxedos, will get their point-fund checks and hardware. A week later the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., hosts a racing double header with the Whelen Modified Tour regulars celebrating their season on Friday night the 14th, while on the next night, Saturday the 15th, NASCAR’s Grand National Busch East regulars enjoy a dinner party.

Sue Watson, wife of open-wheel historian Ed Watson who passed away in early October, advises his last book, “Midget Auto Racing, the First 70 Years” (240 pages with 1,260 photos), is now available at $50 postpaid (Indiana buyers add 6 percent sales tax). Sue says she will soon shutter the business. This book is a great holiday gift for midget race fans. Order your copy from Witness Productions, P.O. Box 34, Marshall, Ind. 47859. Queries to (765) 597-2487. 

An apology. In last week’s column the surname of Doug Hervey, new to Ford’s top echelon of auto racing executives, was misspelled.  It is Hervey, not Harvey.

NASCAR is considering changes in regulations of its secondary series, long known as Busch and becoming Nationwide in 2008 because, for the second straight year, a Nextel Cup regular (Carl Edwards) won the Busch championship. Cup aces, known as Buschwhackers, keep winning Busch series titles, Kevin Harvick having done so in 2001 and again in 2006. NASCAR Chairman Brian France has said Cup regulars won’t be banned from the secondary series, but the top 25 in Cup points may well be. 

An Australian informant tells us the recent Surfers Paradise Champ Car street race saw Australia’s newly extended night club hours go into effect, allowing bars to stay open until 7 a.m. rather than closing at 5 a.m. as in the past. Problems developed when some drunks, staggering into bright sunlight, waded into the ocean, fully clothed, risking drowning. In other interesting Down Under chit-chat, Aussie racing execs are pushing an alliance between that country’s top racing series — V8 SuperCar — and the U.S.-based Champ Car World Series, so that co-op racing events can be offered to Asian countries. No word yet from Champ Car.

More from Australia: Melbourne, capital city of the state of Victoria which organizes the annual Australian F-1 Grand Prix at Albert Park, recently revealed the 2007 running of the event cost the Victorian government 34.3 million Australian dollars! At last look the Aussie dollar was worth 91.3 U.S. cents. You do the math. The reason there is no longer an F-1 U.S.GP at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is because it never made any money.

For TV buffs: The debut of NBC’s Sunday night football was outrated by ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” 18.5 million viewers versus football’s 14.4 million onlookers!

Ed Clark, general manager of the Atlanta Motor Speedway, says the reason his track’s recent Pep Boys Auto 500 did not sell out was the failure of NASCAR’s favorite driver, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., to make the “Chase for the Championship” lineup. In addition to declining Nextel Cup race attendance, that series’ TV ratings, which fell nine percent in 2006, have dropped another eight percent this year, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.