Auto Racing Roundup : Waltrip Holds Off Earnhardt for Third NASCAR Win

The final pit stops proved to be the difference Sunday as Darrell Waltrip held off Dale Earnhardt’s late challenge to win the Pannill Sweatshirts 500 at Martinsville, Va.

Waltrip’s crew changed the right-side tires during his final stop whereas Earnhardt’s crew ran into trouble when they attempted to put new tires on the left side during his stop a little later.

“We just changed the left front,” Earnhardt said. “An air gun broke and we couldn’t change the left rear.

“The car was a little tight and I think it (the tire change) would have worked if we had changed two instead of one.”

Waltrip, who gained his third victory of the season after pulling steadily away at the end, said: “We were in a little trouble (until the last stop) because the car had gotten a little off.

“I told my guys to put it back the way it was earlier in the race, and that worked just fine.”

After the race, NASCAR inspectors discovered that Earnhardt’s crew failed to replace three of the five lug nuts on the left rear tire during his last stop. They fined crew chief Kirk Shelmerdine $300.

Earnhardt, a three-time Winston Cup champion, held onto his season points lead with his second-place finish.

Waltrip, who opened the season with a dramatic victory in the Daytona 500 and won at Atlanta, led the final 52 laps of the 500-lap, 263-mile event.

Waltrip, 42, a three-time Winston Cup champion, has 76 career victories.

Dick LaHaie of Lansing, Mich., scored his first National Hot Rod Assn. national event victory in more than a year in the $814,150 AC-Delco Southern Nationals drag races at Commerce, Ga.

LaHaie, 47, was clocked in 5.139 seconds and 281.77 miles per hour over the quarter-mile course to defeat Eddie Hill of Wichita Falls in the Top Fuel final round.

In the funny car division, Mike Dunn of Ontario, Calif., beat Eric Reed of Chino Hills in the final.

Bob Wollek, driving with John Andretti, bumped his way past Price Cobb with 45 minutes left and went on to win an International Motor Sports Assn. race at West Palm Beach, Fla.

After getting the lead, Wollek built a comfortable lead and cruised home. Wollek, Andretti and Derek Bell won the season-opening 24 Hours of Daytona Feb. 5.

Cobb and Jon Nielsen finished second for the fifth straight race.

Ayrton Senna of Brazil led a 1-2 finish by the McLaren-Honda team in the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, Italy, marred by a flaming crash by Austrian Gerhard Berger.

Senna outraced French teammate Alain Prost in a race restarted after Berger’s accident in the fourth lap.

Berger went off the track at an estimated speed of 174 m.p.h. trying to keep pace with the leaders. He suffered first-degree burns on his arms and chest and second-degree burns on his hands.