SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GRAND PRIX : Lammers Makes Late Move to Win Race : Motor Racing: Brabham, the second-place finisher, clinches series championship when Robinson drops out.

What was billed as a two-hour race turned into a little more than one hour Sunday as the pace car for the Camel Grand Prix of Southern California led for longer than the Jaguars, Nissans, Porsches, Toyotas and Spices that were advertised as the main show Sunday at the Del Monte Fairgrounds.

But even 66 minutes was a couple too many for Geoff Brabham and his turbocharged Nissan prototype ZXT as Jan Lammers of the Netherlands slipped his Jaguar XJR-10 past Brabham two laps from the finish to win the $180,000 combined purse in the year’s richest sports car race.

Brabham, who finished second in the season-ending race for International Motor Sports Assn. cars, won his second straight series championship and its $150,000 bonus when his Nissan teammate, Chip Robinson, dropped out with a broken axle and finished 17th in the 22-car field.

Robinson started the day four points ahead of Brabham.

Brabham led from the 38th lap--about 45 minutes into the race--until Lammers feinted a pass going into the first turn after a restart and found daylight when Brabham got in a little deep and couldn’t turn his car.

“I expected him to attack there because he had tried it on the previous restart and I managed to hold him,” Brabham said. “It takes my car a long time to warm up in a situation like that.

“Actually, when I saw Chip (Robinson) sitting on the side of the road and knew the championship was mine, all the air went out of my balloon. And I knew Jan hadn’t won a race and I knew he would be going for the $180,000 jackpot.”

Brabham apparently forgotten that Lammers was a co-driver when Price Cobb finished first at Portland last July.

Robinson, who needed only to finish ahead of Brabham to win his second championship (he won in 1987 in a Porsche), got off to a poor start when he hit a pylon and it stuck in his front nose for half a lap. He was running seventh when he pitted early, but was never a factor after returning.

On the 59th lap of the 85-lap race, the red, white and blue Nissan stopped with a broken axle.

“It’s something that has never happened with this car before,” Robinson said. “I have no complaints. We’ve had a terrific year and I couldn’t be happier for Geoff (Brabham). This track was very rough and we gave it everything we had.”

Lammers, a jockey-sized driver who won the 24 Hours of LeMans in 1988, also shared the winning ride here last year with Martin Brundle of England.

Bob Earl, driving a Chevrolet-powered Spice, finished third after almost passing Brabham on the final lap. Also on the lead lap were Willy T. Ribbs, in Dan Gurney’s Toyota Eagle, and Jochen Mass, in a four-year-old Havoline Porsche 962 that is probably headed for retirement.

Mass echoed the feelings of most of the 36,500 spectators when he fumed that “They could have removed those cars a lot quicker. It seemed like the whole race was run under yellow.”

Mark Rappauf, IMSA president, said the cause for all the inaction was an experiment that didn’t work.

“It was an experiment to do the Camel Lights drivers a favor and create a better atmosphere for their race, but the end result speaks for itself,” Rappauf said. “The process was too slow, and I know the fans aren’t here to watch a parade. It was the first time in 20 years I heard boos like that during a race, and I didn’t enjoy it.”

This was the second time the process was used and it wasn’t any better at Watkins Glen.

“We felt we needed to try it on a tight course like Del Mar,” Rappauf said. “It slowed things down too much on a big course like Watkins Glen, but we felt it might work here. But we know now we’ll never do it again.”

The first caution came when Frank Jelinski crashed his Joest Porsche 962.

“I was just going too fast,” the West German driver said. “I hit the left wall, then the right wall and went bing, bing, bing just like a ball.”

That caution period lasted 23 minutes.

Scott Schubot of West Palm Beach, Fla., won the Camel Lights race and finished ninth overall in the race within a race. It was Schubot’s eighth win in his Buick Spice, which made him a runaway series winner.

Linda Ludemann drove two laps in Schubot’s car during the race to get credit for her fourth victory of the season.

A Lights car is a non-turbocharged version of the prototypes with a three-liter engine capacity or less.

Ribbs was pleased with the fourth place finish of the Toyota Eagle.

“The bottom line is that we finished, and that we beat one of the Nissans and one of the Jags. That is the best finish we have ever had, but it’s not going be that way next year. We don’t plan on starting from this point, we plan of getting to the next level and coming out smoking.”