Motor Racing Roundup : Fittipaldi Gauges It Just Right, Gets Win

Emerson Fittipaldi had a strange sensation as he drove toward victory.

The 40-year-old Brazilian won Sunday’s Cleveland Grand Prix Indy-car race by a comfortable 11.63 seconds over the Bobby Rahal, but for a while he didn’t know if he could make it.

“It was one of the longest laps of my life,” Fittipaldi said of the last of the 80 laps.

“The last five laps, my fuel light was flashing. I knew we were marginal, so I was trying to save on fuel by changing gears early and braking early. I wanted to make sure the car was going to finish.”

Fittipaldi and Rahal made their last pit stops after the 53rd lap, and Fittipaldi wasn’t sure he had enough fuel to finish.

Fittipaldi, starting from the No. 5 position, passed pole-sitter Roberto Guerrero on the 43rd lap and led for 37 of the final 38 laps. The two-time Formula One driving champion averaged 128.421 m.p.h., surpassing the 127.106 of last year’s winner, Danny Sullivan.

The victory was Fittipaldi’s first of the season and third in four seasons on the CART circuit.

Rahal’s second-place finish increased his lead in the season driving standings over Michael Andretti. Rahal, defending series champion, has 90 points to 78 for Andretti, who was sixth at Cleveland.

Al Unser Jr., winner of the 1985 Cleveland race, finished third in a March-Cosworth, 24.35 seconds behind. Sullivan, the winner in 1984 and 1986, was fourth in a March-Chevy, five seconds behind Unser Jr., and Guerrero was fifth in a March-Cosworth, another three seconds back.

Price Cobb and Vern Schuppan finished two laps ahead of Jim Adams and John Hotchkis in winning the IMSA Camel Continental at Watkins Glen, N.Y.

The average speed of the race, slowed by four caution periods for 31 laps, was 109.450 m.p.h.--slowest ever for the 500-kilometer race. The winner’s share of the $153,500 purse was $56,500.

Third overall, and first in the smaller Camel Lights class, was the Pontiac Fiero GTP of Steve Durst and Mike Brockman.

Al Holbert’s bid for a fourth straight Continental victory ended when teammate Chip Robinson crashed. Holbert’s other entry dropped out of contention during a lengthy pit stop to replace a fourth gear.

Britain’s Nigel Mansell won his second straight French Grand Prix as France’s Alain Prost missed another chance for a record 28th Formula One victory at Le Castallet, France.

Mansell held off his hard-charging Williams-Honda teammate, Brazilian Nelson Piquet, to win in a time of 1 hour 37 minutes with an an average speed of 117 m.p.h. Piquet was 7.711 seconds behind.

Prost was third, more than 55 seconds behind Mansell, and remains tied with Jackie Stewart with 27 Grand Prix victories.

Pole-sitter Scott Atchison of Bakersfield overcame an early mistake, regained the lead with five laps to go and won the Cleveland Super Vee race by .38 of a second over David Kudrave of La Canada.

Atchison, 24, averaged 116.395 m.p.h. in the 25-lap race.