Sports Beat

You have no doubt heard of Claude Vorilhon, the French self-appointed prophet better known as Ra�l: He claims, so far without supporting evidence, that his 55,000-member organization, Clonaid, has cloned a human. Ra�l, 56, got into the prophet business back in 1973, when, he says, he was hiking in France and some aliens appeared and asked him to be their earthly representative. What you may not know, however, is that before he took them up on their offer, Ra�l got deeply into motor sports. As Vorilhon he was the Audi Cup series Rookie of the Year in 1974, and though he abandoned racing shortly afterward to spread the word that Jesus used an antigravity beam to walk on water, and similar wisdom, Ra�l returned to the track in 1994 and ran half of the 2000 Speedvision World Challenge GT series. (He finished 42nd out of 77 drivers.) He also ran in that year's 24 Hours of Daytona, as part of a team that steered the Clonaid car to a solid 34th-place finish—28 spots ahead of Paul Newman 's team. "When I was coming back to race, people were looking at me: 'Who is this crazy UFO man?' " Ra�l said in '97. "Then they saw me driving, and I got their respect because they saw I was not a bad driver. When you are crazy, you cannot be a driver of the car."

?He robbed a casino in Ocean's 11, busted drug lords in Traffic and crooned tunes as Sammy Davis Jr. in HBO 's The Rat Pack, but Don Cheadle's favorite role could be the one he's playing now: football fan. Cheadle, 38, is appearing in five NFL ads in which he helps reenact the greatest moments in postseason history. Among the plays highlighted: Dwight Clark 's game-winning catch in the 1981 NFC Championship Game , and Patriots kicker Adam a Vinatieri's decisive 48-yard field goal in last year's Super Bowl. During filming at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego—the site of Super Bowl XXXVII on Jan. 26—Cheadle showed up on the set in Broncos gear (he graduated from Denver 's East High) and tossed a couple of passes that according to one league official on hand, traveled 50 yards.

?In what the New York Post called "a marquee cross-generational NFL canoodle," Giants rookie tight end Jeremy Shockey , 22, and 20-year-old Brittny Gastineau, the daughter of former Jets sackmeister Mark Gastineau , are dating. The younger Gastineau , a senior at Alabama , met Shockey two weeks ago and hung out with him last week at her New York City apartment.... Live from New York , it's Jeff Gordon ! This Saturday the four-time Winston Cup champ will be the first race car driver to guest-host Saturday Night Live . Says Gordon , "It will probably be a lot like the Winston—90 minutes of controlled chaos." ...In front of 248 guests—including Lakers teammates Rick Fox , Mark Madsen , Kareem Rush and Brian Shaw—Shaquille O'Neal married longtime girlfriend Shaunie Nelson at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Dec. 26. Shaq , fresh from Lakers practice, arrived in an out-sized Cadillac Escalade , followed by a line of Lotuses, Ferraris, Range Rovers and limousines carrying friends, family and teammates. O'Neal , 30, and Nelson, 28, have two children together (they've been dating for three years) and are expecting another child in May.