From the newsroom: Online sports contests

Three months ago, we wrote about the Richmond Times-Dispatch's weekly auto racing fantasy contest, in which participants can win tickets to races at Richmond International Raceway.

We were only 11 weeks into the season then. This weekend's race, the Sharpie 500 in Bristol, was the 24th Sprint Cup event of the year, and we're only three weeks away from the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at RIR on Sept. 12.

The contest is still going strong. More than 350 people have entered each week, and 755 have taken part at least once. The contest community grows by as many as a dozen people with each race. Some entire households take part; they've told us they treat the contest as a family activity each week.

Thanks to RIR, our prizes are significant. RIR and the race sponsors provided a pair of tickets to the Crown Royal Presents the Russ Friedman 400 on May 2 and two pairs of tickets for the previous night's Nationwide Series race, the Lipton Tea 250.

Tickets to the September race are among the prizes still available. We'll be holding a drawing on Sept. 7 to select the winner of a pair of tickets to the Rock & Roll 400. The winner will be chosen from among the weekly high-score winners from May 6 through Sept. 6.

Even bigger prizes are in store for the person who scores the highest weekly point total for the summer and for the person who has the highest cumulative score for the season. They'll win ticket packages for the May 2010 races at RIR.

The weekly high-score leaders before this weekend's race were Gloria Bradley of Richmond and Corey Owen of Midlothian. They tied with 431 points during the 22nd week of the contest.

The current cumulative points leader is John Michael Hoke of Richmond; he had 7,613 points before last night's Sharpie 500.

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The NFL season kicks off Sept. 10 with the Tennessee Titans visiting the defending Super Bowl champions, the Pittsburgh Steelers, in a Thursday night game. A full slate of games will follow on Sunday. We will have a fantasy football contest this season, so watch for information in the sports pages of The Times-Dispatch and online at http://www.TimesDispatch.com.

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Games and contests, especially those related to ongoing news or sporting events, are among the tools we use to help readers interact with The Times-Dispatch and TimesDispatch.com and to become more involved in the coverage. If you have suggestions for other games or contests, please send me an e-mail.

Randy Jessee is special-projects editor. Contact him at 804-649-6118 or .