Auto Racing Roundup : Sherman Balch Wins Grand National Sports Truck Main Event

Sherman Balch of Fremont, Calif., captured the Grand National Sports truck main event Saturday night in the Mickey Thompson Off-Road Championship Gran Prix at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Balch took the lead for good on the sixth lap in the 10-lap feature race around the six-turn, six-tenths-of-a-mile track.

Rod Millen of Anaheim finished second and Roger Mears of Bakersfield was third.

Jerry Welch of Orange won the main event for 1,600cc buggies despite driving the final lap with one tire missing.

Eric Arras of Riverside won the unlimited single-seaters event and Greg George of Ontario, took the Ultrastock full-bodied buggies race.

Defending champion Derek Bell was forced into an extended pit stop after an accident, and Paolo Barilla went on to win the $250,000 Miami Grand Prix in front of 80,000 along the 1.87-mile course at Miami.

Barilla, of Italy, driving a Porsche 962 in a team with Bob Wollek of France, finished well in front of second-place Danny Sullivan. Hans Stuck finished third and Hurley Haywood was fourth. Barilla and Wollek earned $55,000, and Sullivan and partner A.J. Foyt collected $27,000.

Bell had opened a 12-second lead over second-place Wollek, but lost the race when he collided with Gianpiero Moretti with a little less than an hour left in the three-hour race.

The accident broke the rear suspension in Bell’s car, forcing a prolonged stop. After the accident, Wollek let Barilla take over and Barilla built a 48-second lead over Stuck with 20 minutes left.

Terry Labonte of Trinity, N.C. started from the pole and won the Goodwrench 500 NASCAR stock car race Sunday at Rockingham, N.C..

In his last nine starts here, Labonte has two victories, two second-place finishes, two thirds and one fourth.

Jack Baldwin drove past the wrecked cars of Scott Pruett and Willy T. Ribbs on the next-to-last turn to win a Camel GTO race in a Miami Grand Prix preliminary race.

Juan Manuel Fangio II of Argentina posted his second straight victory in the Mazda InterAmerican Challenge when he passed Tom Sneva more than halfway through the race and kept the lead in a preliminary event to the Miami Grand Prix.