Motor Racing Roundup : Miss Bahia Wins San Diego Hydroplane Race

Miss Bahia came back from a two-year layoff to win the Miller High Life Thunderboat Regatta Sunday on Mission Bay at San Diego.

Miss Bahia, driven by Ron Armstrong of Lakewood, led from start to finish in the six-boat final to give Armstrong and the 17-year-old hydroplane their first wins ever.

Miss Bahia, which hadn’t raced in two years and had put in only four practice laps before this weekend, was the first hydroplane other than Miller American and Miss Budweiser to score a victory in one of the eight races this season. Miss Bahia’s winning speed was 118.692 m.p.h.

The co-favorites of the regatta, Miller American and Miss Budweiser, encountered unusual troubles. Fuel problems and a fire Sunday morning forced Chip Hanauer’s Miller American to abandon qualifying for the final.

Miss Budweiser, driven by Jim Kropfeld, went to the sidelines with a broken prop in the middle of the second heat of qualifying. Kropfeld had a chance to enter the final, but throttle failure kept his Miss Budweiser from starting.

Hanauer leads Kropfeld by 269 points in the season standings.

Nigel Mansell of Britain, won his fifth Formula One race this year, leading the Portuguese Grand Prix from start to finish at Estoril, Portugal.

Mansell, in a Williams-Honda, increased his lead in the 1986 World Drivers’ Championship to 70 points. A win at Mexico City Oct. 12 would clinch his first title.

Nelson Piquet of Brazil has 60 points and Alain Porst, the defending champion from France, is right behind with 59. Prost, driving a McLaren-TAG-Porsche, finished second. Piquet was third and Ayrton Senna of Brazil was fourth.

Mansell got the jump on Senna, who was on the pole, in the first corner and never was headed.

Despite a solid lead, he set repeated lap records. “With the reigning world champion behind you and twice world champion behind him, you can’t give them an inch,” Mansell said.

Mansell’s time for the 70-lap race was 1 hour 37 minutes 21.9 seconds for an average speed of 116.6 m.p.h.

Michele Alboreto of Italy was fifth and Stefan Johansson of Sweden was sixth.

At Martinsville, Va., Rusty Wallace beat Geoff Bodine out of the pits during the final caution period and outraced him over the last 20 laps for a car length win in the NASCAR Goody’s 500 Winston Cup race.

“If that last caution flag hadn’t have come out, I couldn’t have caught him,” Wallace said. “My crew was quicker at the end. My car was a tick faster.”

The win was Wallace’s second of the season and his career. He won $40,175 from a $336,180 purse.

Bodine started the race on the pole after setting a qualifying record of 90.599 m.p.h.

Wallace, Bodine and third-place finisher Harry Gant were the only drivers on the lead lap at the end of the race on the Martinsville Speedway’s .526-mile oval.

The caution flag came out when Bodine’s teammate Tim Richmond spun on lap 476. Bodine and Wallace both went in for pit stops, and Wallace, driving a Pontiac, was the first car back on the track.

“If my teammate hadn’t spun out, I would have won the race,” Bodine said.

With five races remaining on the Winston Cup schedule, Dale Earnhardt, who finished 12th Sunday, leads Richmond by 136 points and Darrell Waltrip by 159.

Davy Jones of McGraw, N.Y., driving a BMW GTP, won the Kodak Copier 500 at Watkins Glen International Race, giving BMW its first Camel GTP win.

It was also the first Camel GTP win for Jones and teammate John Andretti of Indianapolis. They won $61,500.

Al Holbert and Derek Bell finished second in a Porsche 962, giving Holbert of Warrington, Pa., his fifth Camel GT championship.

The Road America 200 CART race at Elhart Lake, Wis., was postponed because of rain and rescheduled for Saturday Oct. 4.