The challenge has been issued and accepted. Four-time NBA champion Shaquille O’Neal has swapped his size-23 basketball shoes for racing Velcro; traded his breezy, cool basketball jersey for a heavy, fire-retardant driver’s suit; forgone the familiarity of basketball hardwood for the cramped quarters of a stock-car cockpit ‘Â all 7-foot-1, 325 pounds of him. His reason: challenge NASCAR’s most popular driver and winner of more than 40 NASCAR-sanctioned races, Dale Earnhardt Jr., to a one-on-one race in a test of skill, endurance and speed. The competition will be featured in the second season of Shaq Vs., the popular television series that is part of ABC’s new summer season. The show’s premise is simple: O’Neal takes his top-level skills and athletic prowess from the basketball court and transfers it to a different and unfamiliar sporting event. The first season pitted Shaq in a head-to-head match-up against Albert Pujols in a homerun-hitting contest, Michael Phelps in a swimming race, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh in beach volleyball, and Oscar de la Hoya in a boxing match. The race between O’Neal and Earnhardt Jr. will take place at 4:00pm/et on Wednesday, June 23, at Concord Speedway, a tricky, half-mile tri-oval that features some of the best weekly racing in North Carolina. The event is open to the public free of charge. Gates will open at 1:00pm/et. No cameras or phones will be allowed inside the facility. Terms of the race will be negotiated by O’Neal and Earnhardt Jr. on the day of the race. Shaq Vs. will premiere its second season on ABC Tuesday, Aug. 3.(JR Motorsports)(6-19-2010)
