BRIEFLY : HAMILTON'S VICTORY FORCES PETTY TO PAY.

Bobby Hamilton's victory Monday in the rain-delayed ACDelco 400 at North Carolina Motor Speedway was an affirmation of a friendship and affection between the driver and his soon-to-be ex-car owner Richard Petty.

Besides the $89,150 he earned Petty Enterprises for the win, Hamilton will pocket an extra $100,000 as the payoff to a one-sided bet with Petty.

``We were at dinner one night,'' Hamilton explained. ``Actually, we had just talked about the deal about me leaving and everything. You wouldn't believe how easy this has been and how comfortable this has been dealing with him (Petty) on a business level.

``He said, `You need to win me a race before you leave.' I said, `I'm trying.' He said, `I'll bet $100,000 that you won't win another race before the year is up.' I said, `Is this a real bet?' He said, `Yeah, it's a real bet.' We shook hands on it.''

Hamilton has said he is leaving because he felt that his team's effort was getting less attention since Kyle Petty, Richard's son, came back into the Petty Enterprises fold this year with his own PE2 team.

It was only the second career victory for Hamilton, but it came exactly a year to the day after his first win for Petty at Phoenix.

Hamilton will leave the team and the renowned No. 43 Pontiac to replace Sterling Marlin at Morgan-McClure Racing in 1998.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Texas coach John Mackovic said he won't discuss a newspaper report saying school regents have reached a consensus to fire or reassign him at the end of the season.

The Dallas Morning News, citing two unidentified sources, reported that there is enough support among the school's nine-member board to fire or reassign the sixth-year coach at the end of the season.

``It's ridiculous to suggest that the board of regents of the University of Texas System was even discussing the football program at UT-Austin, much less reached a consensus in the middle of the football season about the future of its football coach,'' Patrick Oxford, a member of the board of regents, told Houston TV station KRIV. ``That issue is not even a blip on our screen.''

TENNIS: Americans Jim Courier and Todd Martin both lost in the first round of the Paris Open.

Czech Bohdan Uhlirach beat Courier 7-6 (7-5), 6-1. Dutchman Jan Siemerink topped Martin 4-6, 7-6 (8-6), 6-2.

ETC: Gordon Stuckless, a former Maple Leaf Gardens employee, was sentenced for two years in jail for abusing at least 24 boys at the famed Toronto hockey arena and other sites. . . . Former Buffalo Sabres coach Ted Nolan has withdrawn his name from consideration for the Tampa Bay Lightning coaching position, his agent said.. . . The father of Olympic gold medal gymnast Kerri Strug is recovering from successful quintuple heart bypass surgery in Tucson, Ariz. . . . The Goodwill Games alliance between the United States and Russia is over, and no longer will the quadrennial competition be limited strictly to those two countries. Mike Plant, president of the Games, said the next Games in 2002 probably would be in Asia or Oceania.