MOTOR RACING ROUNDUP : Old Whitney Serves Wallace Well at Charlotte

With a little luck and some help from an old friend, defending NASCAR points champion Rusty Wallace snapped a 16-race winless streak by winning the Coca Cola 600 on Sunday.

“I wanted to win, but I didn’t think I would dominate like I did,” said Wallace, who drove a 1987 Pontiac nicknamed “Whitney” to victory over Bill Elliott. The margin was so close only because the field was bunched because of a caution period just before the end of the race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.

Wallace’s first victory since the Miller 400 at Richmond in September didn’t come easily, even though his Pontiac led 306 of 400 laps.

“With the kind of luck I have been having, I was feeling a little confused,” Wallace said. “Not down, just confused. So I said to myself, ‘If you’re going to come back, there’s no better place to win.’ ”

He nearly didn’t.

With five laps left in stock car racing’s longest test, the engine in Rick Wilson’s Oldsmobile blew and dropped oil onto the track. Wallace, who was about two car-lengths ahead of Elliott’s Ford, nearly brushed the wall between the third and fourth turns but held his lead.

After the 11th and final caution period, Wallace outran Elliott to the checkered flag by 0.17 seconds. Elliott tried to take the inside line into the final turn, but Wallace cut him off to claim the $151,000 winner’s prize.

“If we had another lap, I might have gotten him,” said Elliott, who also is looking for his first victory in 1990.

“We kept struggling, working and changing things, but I couldn’t catch him,” Elliott said. “All in all, it was a good day.”

Wallace averaged 137.650 m.p.h. for the 600 miles, which took nearly 4 1/2 hours to complete. He started the race in ninth position.

Mark Martin finished third, followed by Michael Waltrip, Ernie Irvan, Alan Kulwicki, Davey Allison, Morgan Shepherd, Derrike Cope and Geoff Bodine.

Pole-winner Ken Schrader finished 11th after running into trouble with 50 laps to go. Until then, he was challenging Wallace and Elliott for the lead.

Dale Earnhardt, the Winston Cup points leader, continued to experience bad luck in the Coca-Cola 600. He cut a rear tire on the 104th lap and hit the wall on Turn 2.

After major repairs to his Chevy Lumina, Earnhardt returned and ended up 30th, maintaining by 21 points his lead in the points race over Shepherd. Earnhardt has 1,533 points, Shepherd 1,512.

Wallace, who led on five occasions, took the front for good when he passed Elliott with 90 laps left. They moved away from the rest of the pack until the final caution bunched the field and reduced the race to a one-lap sprint.

Brazil’s Ayrton Senna held off a late charge from Frenchman Jean Alesi to win his third Monaco Grand Prix in record fashion at Monte Carlo.

Senna, driving a McLaren-Honda, finished 1.087 seconds ahead of Alesi’s Tyrrell-Ford after building a margin of 26 seconds through 60 of the first 78 laps. Austrian Gerhard Berger, Senna’s teammate, was third.

Senna, who started from the pole, averaged a record 85.83 m.p.h. in winning the 161.3-mile race for the third time in four years, but impetuosity nearly cost him.

“I was too aggressive early,” Senna said. “Then I had problems with the engine. I slowed down to minimize the risk.”

On the 59th lap, Senna posted a time of 1:24.468, bettering the record of 1:25.501 set by France’s Alain Prost last year.

After that, Senna took it easy.

“I was lifting off the accelerator but trying to maintain the pace,” he said. “But after you slow down you lose the ultimate pressure in the engine.”

Alesi and Berger kept the pressure up while waging their own duel. Both gained on Senna, and Alesi edged Berger for second place by less than a second.

“I pushed very hard to keep up but Senna was too quick at the beginning,” Alesi said. “I was just happy to stay in second, but it was difficult with Berger always there.”

Belgium’s Thierry Boutsen was fourth, with Italy’s Alex Caffi fifth and Frenchman Eric Bernard sixth.

Senna leads the world championship standings with 22 points. Berger is second with 16.