Motor Racing Roundup : Victory Gives Prost Overall Lead

Alain Prost took the overall lead in the Formula One driver standings by easily winning the Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril Sunday.

Prost, a two-time Grand Prix champion, has 81 points after winning his fifth race of the season, five points ahead of Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian, who could have all but won his first title with a victory at Estroil. But Senna finished sixth, and has three races remaining in the 16-event season to overtake Prost.

Prost completed 70 laps of the 2.703-mile track at an average speed of 116.896 m.p.h., slightly behind his record average of 116.957 in winning last year’s Portuguese event.

Prost had been among those conceding the title to Senna after the Brazilian’s brilliant burst of four consecutive victories. But that streak ended when Senna spun on the next-to-last lap of the Italian Grand Prix.

“I now see things in a slightly different light,” said Prost, whose 33rd career victory extended his record total. “But Jerez (site of next Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix) is not one of my favorite circuits and it favors the non-turbo cars.”

Ivan Capelli of Italy was second, ahead of Thierry Boutsen of Belgium.

Danny Sullivan stretched his lead in the Indy-car points race with a comfortable victory in the Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix at Pennsylvania International Raceway in Nazareth, Pa.

Sullivan drove his Penske Chevrolet 12.206 seconds faster over the 200 miles than his nearest challenger, defending champion Michael Andretti. Sullivan, of Louisville, Ky., averaged 148.526 m.p.h. in winning $54,460 of the $450,000 purse.

Mario Andretti, who, like his son, was racing on his hometown track, finished third, followed by Teo Fabi of Italy and Raul Boesel of Brazil.

Several drivers had tire problems.

The race was the second Indy-car event on the rebuilt 1-mile, 3-turn oval, where Sullivan had set a world record in Saturday’s qualifying.

The victory gave Sullivan some room in the points race with 2 races remaining on the 15-event schedule.

Sullivan earned 21 points--20 for winning the race, 1 for taking the pole--to increase his season total to 149, 25 ahead of two-time defending points champion Bobby Rahal.

Rahal finished 12th, earning 1 point.

Darrell Waltrip, taking the lead when the engine in Ricky Rudd’s car blew for the 21st time this season, pulled away over the final 80 laps to win the NASCAR Goody’s 500 auto race at Martinsville, Va.

Rudd’s Buick had dominated much of the race at Martinsville Speedway, leading 4 times for a total of 237 laps before it began smoking and slowed off the pace on the 420th lap.

Waltrip, whose Chevrolet was running second at the time, passed Rudd on the backstretch to take the lead for good.

Three laps later, Rudd was unable to continue.

It was the second victory of the year for Waltrip, who has won 73 races and 3 Winston Cup season driving titles en route to amassing more than $8.5 million in career winnings. Sunday’s victory was worth $48,750.

“Ricky was running pretty good,” Waltrip said. “He would have been hard to beat. I’m sorry he had trouble, but I knew I had something left there at the end.”

Waltrip has won nine times at Martinsville, including the 1987 Goody’s 500.

Scott Parker of Swartz Creek, Mich., scored a wire-to-wire victory Saturday night in the American Motorcyclist Assn. half-mile championship at Ascot Park and took a big step in ending the 3-year reign of Bubba Shobert as Grand National Champion.

With the victory, Parker has a 28-point lead (228-220) over Shobert, who finish seventh Saturday night, with only one race remaining.