Scorecard

DRUG RELATED?

Don Aronow, who designed and raced some of the world's fastest ocean powerboats, sat in his Mercedes at an intersection in northeast Miami on Tuesday afternoon of last week. A blue Lincoln pulled alongside, and gunmen fired several shots through an open window. Aronow, 59, died 45 minutes later.

Friends grieved for a dashing man who was killed only months before he was to resume a notable racing career in which he had won two world power-boating titles. "He lived life to the fullest," eulogized Dr. Robert Magoon, himself a powerboat champion. "Don died as he would have wished, with his boots on and front-page headlines."

Law enforcement authorities haven't ruled out robbery or even mistaken identity as reasons for the killing. But a drug connection is suspected. Billy Yout, a spokesman for the Miami office of the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration, called the shooting "a typical hit," probably orchestrated by "Colombian drug traffickers."

The link between drugs and power-boating is not new. For more than a decade South American dealers have used powerboats to bring their goods into the U.S. Last month three-time world powerboating champion George Morales pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to smuggle 1,200 to 1,500 kilograms of cocaine into Florida. He faces a possible sentence of 20 years in jail.

There's no evidence Aronow was involved in smuggling. His boats, notably the Cigarette and the Blue Thunder, have been used by drug runners but also by authorities fighting the drug trade. Thus when Aronow sold 13 Blue Thunders to the U.S. Customs Service last year, he was able to joke that he did so to help agents "catch smugglers using boats my other companies have made."

COURTLY COURTSHIP

"I'm not married," says Patti Jay, the promotions director of radio station Q103-FM in Denver, "but if I were getting married, I sure wouldn't do it in front of 17,000 people at a basketball game." Jay was therefore amazed when she received more than 100 entries for the station's third annual Nuggets Nuptials contest; there were no more than 50 entries each of the previous two years. This year's lucky winners, drawn at random, are Lorie Limbach and Don Brandsma, who will tie the knot at half-time of the Nuggets- Indiana Pacers game on Valentine's Day. "It's a wild time," says Jay. "When the judge asks, 'Does anyone know of a reason why these two shouldn't be married?' some guys always start yelling, 'Yes! Yes! Don't do it!' "

What the ceremony might lack in stateliness it makes up for in Wheel of Fortune-caliber prizes. Besides the free service, Limbach and Brandsma will receive wedding bands, flowers, a night's stay in the honeymoon suite of a local hotel and a week on the beach in Acapulco. Last but not least, they get good seats for the game and 100 extra tickets for their guests.

END OF A LONG RUN