TALENT, Ore. – Big George Helms had tickets for last weekend’s NASCAR race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but died before he got to use them. He still made it to the track, though.

At 6-foot-5 and 400 pounds, Helms wouldn’t have been able to fit into a race car. But after his death from a heart attack Dec. 28, loved ones decided to try to fulfill the 54-year-old’s dream of participating in a NASCAR race, and arranged for the former logger’s ashes to be driven around the track.

“His friends came up to us during the memorial service and asked us if they could take his ashes to the NASCAR race,” said Helms’ mother, Dixie Helms. “I said ‘He’d love that.'”

And Helms will be at the track’s next race, in spirit anyway. His friends spread some of his ashes at the speedway before returning the rest to his mother.

Opera house uses poster of naked actor without consent

LONDON – Juan Pablo di Pace didn’t mind that a Royal Opera House poster showed him naked. He didn’t even mind the air brushing.

The 28-year-old actor was just upset that the company didn’t ask for his consent.

The opera company said Wednesday it would stop using the promotional poster for Verdi’s “Rigoletto.”

The nude image was taken from a 2001 staging in which Di Pace had a small role.

“We take photographs of all productions and we may use those for promotional purposes in the future,” Royal Opera House spokesman Christopher Millard said.

Millard said the company had received a letter from Di Pace’s representatives expressing his unhappiness.

The company said it had altered the image in various ways for the posters.

“He was perfectly happy in the first place to get naked and take photos,” said spokesman Eugene O’Hara. He said the problem was “they used his image for seven years without consent or payment.”