MOTOR RACING ROUNDUP : Earnhardt Gets Well Quickly by Earning His 40th Victory

Dale Earnhardt fought off a stomach ailment and strong challenges from Geoff Bodine and Morgan Shepherd to win the Motorcraft 500 NASCAR Winston Cup stock car race Sunday at Atlanta International Raceway.

“I got to feeling pretty bad about halfway through the race,” Earnhardt said after sniffing oxygen in his car. “I was sick to my stomach and, for a while there, I thought about relief.”

But he held on to change the hard luck that dogged him in the season’s early races.

He passed Shepherd just two laps from the end and went on to win by 0.32 seconds. The pass came in the first turn on the 1.522-mile oval when Shepherd drove up the banking to go around the lapped car of Alan Kulwicki.

Earnhardt dominated the 328-lap race, leading 216 laps. He did the same thing at Daytona in the season opener, only to lose on the final lap when he shredded a tire.

Earnhardt won $85,000 for his 40th career victory and averaged 156.849 m.p.h., breaking his track record of 152.523 set in 1986.

Camel Supercross point leader Jeff Matiasevich, consistent but a nonwinner during the first six races of the season, won his first 250cc main event on a Kawasaki Saturday night at the Silver Bowl in Las Vegas.

Darrell Gwynn of Miami set a track record with a 4.982 elapsed time at 280.46 m.p.h. in his first-round run Sunday, and beat Eddie Hill in the final to win the Top Fuel division of the National Hot Rod Assn. Winston Drag Racing Series in Gainesville, Fla.