THE OPENING LINE

Monday, Aug. 21, 2006 | 7:21 a.m.

I think they should allow a kitchen sink into the octagon, just to see if these guys would hit each other with it.

TICKETS: $100-$700

ON THE WEB: www.ufc.com

ALSO WORTH A LOOK

Bowling: USBC Women's Challenge Saturday, Sept. 1 Fashion Show mall

Sixteen of the world's best female bowlers attempt to become Queenpin in a special made-for-ESPN2 event. Look for it the next time there's a lull in the indoor lacrosse season.

TICKETS: Free

ON THE WEB: www.bowl.com

FIRE IN THE HOLE!

When I read that a guy was going to try to set a world speed record by driving a jet-powered outhouse at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Saturday night, my first thought was this could only happen in North Carolina.

Then I quickly reconsidered. There are guys I know who aren't from North Carolina, some who even went to college, who would pay good money to watch a guy drive a jet-powered outhouse.

Still, why did the driver have to be from Indiana?

On Saturday night, Mike Terry, the pride of Bloomington, Ind., (sorry John Mellencamp) strapped himself to the seat of Port-O-Jet and did all us native Hoosiers proud. Or at least made us forget our sorry college football team for a few minutes.

There was an unconfirmed rumor that Terry planned to enter his rig, which began as a standard-sized portable toilet like the ones you see at construction sites or at rest stops between here and Reno, armed with the Sunday edition of the Charlotte Observer. Fans feared it might slow him down.

Not to worry. Terry was able to set aside the sports section and the crossword puzzle in plenty of time to git-r-done.

Fitted with a jet aircraft engine - let those Monster Garage guys chew on that for a while - the outhouse melted down a couple of old Cadillacs as if they were defective M&Ms.

But Terry didn't take a shot at his own land speed record for a motorized outhouse of 34.72 mph set in 2002. The pockmarked Lowe's dirt oval simply is not conducive to a jet-powered port-o-potty getting on the gas, so to speak.

In 2005, Paul Stender, the rig's former driver, had tried but apparently had a little too much Liquid-Plumr under the hood. The attempt at the record went down the toilet when the toilet went down in Turn One,

flipping onto its side.

Terry's decision to limit his on-track activity to a burnout - or burn down - spoiled a possible dream-come-true for the public address announcer.

Although he would never admit it, you know the man behind the microphone had to be hoping that Terry would lose control of Port-O-Jet and crash into the grandstand, if for no other reason than to utter the immortal line that ...

Well, do I actually have to write what would have hit the fans in Turn 2?