MOTOR RACING ROUNDUP : Don’t Be Fuelish: Luyendyk Loses Argument, but Wins Indy-Car Race

Arie Luyendyk lost an argument with his pit crew and won Sunday’s Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix race at Nazareth, Pa.

Race officials monitoring the team radios said Luyendyk believed he was nearly out of fuel and kept telling his crew he needed a pit stop in the closing stages of the 200-mile CART Indy-car race.

They kept telling him, “Stay out there.”

So while championship contenders Bobby Rahal and Michael Andretti made fuel stops in the final 10 laps, Luyendyk stayed on the one-mile Pennsylvania International Raceway tri-oval and won for the second time this season, his third in CART Indy-car racing.

“What I read on the dash didn’t give me the impression I was going to finish,” Luyendyk said. “But I was going to finish fourth anyway. It was fourth or first, and they told me to stay out anyway.”

Rahal appeared to have his second victory of the year before darting into the pits 10 laps from the end for a splash of fuel. Andretti also had to pit for fuel, racing in on Lap 195.

Suddenly, Luyendyk, who only a few laps before was working hard to keep Rahal from lapping him, was taking the checkered flag, winning by 0.71 of a second.

Luyendyk averaged 131.310 m.p.h. and earned $63,452.

Andretti can win the points title by finishing 10th or better in the final race of the season, at Monterrey, Calif.

Geoff Bodine raced to the finish line on fumes, beating Davey Allison and winning the Mello Yello 500-mile race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Bodine took the lead when Allison came in for gas on the 317th lap. Though Allison’s stop was only four seconds, it helped Bodine open a 21-second edge that Allison couldn’t close.

Bodine had stopped for gas on the 258th lap, giving him 114 miles to go on 22 gallons. His crew chose to let him stay on the track and, as Bodine took the checkered flag, the car ran out of gas.

Bodine averaged 138.980 m.p.h

Robbie Buhl won his first career Firestone Indy Lights Championship race at Pennsylvania International Raceway, finishing 0.647 seconds ahead of P.J. Jones.

Buhl averaged 114.619 m.p.h for 75 miles and won $23,750.

Kevin Atherton led the entire race and held off Scott Parker to win the 20-lap American Motorcyclist Assn./Camel Pro series dirt-track event Saturday at the Los Angeles Fairgrounds at Pomona.

Parker’s second-place finish gives him a four-point lead in the points race over Harley-Davidson teammate Chris Carr with only next Saturday’s race at Cal-Expo at Sacramento remaining. The points winner gets a $100,000 bonus.

Carr, who had started the race with a one-point lead over Parker, overcame mechanical problems and finished fourth Saturday, behind Steve More.

All Ron Braaksma had to do was to break the starting beam to win the top-fuel hydro championship in the International Hot Boat Assn. Fallnationals at San Dimas’ Puddingstone Lake.

Braaksma covered the quarter mile in 5.67 seconds at 203.61 m.p.h., but that really didn’t matter after his opponent, Steve Varner, fouled at the start. Varner was the third of four semifinalists to be disqualified, the others being Kyle Walker and Ralph Padilla, who drove outside course markers in their semifinal against each other.

With Walker and Padilla disqualified, that turned the other semifinal into the championship race, and when Varner disqualified, Braaksma became the winner.

Keke Rosberg carefully nursed a Peugeot over a rain-slicked track to win the Sportscar World Championship race in Mexico City. Teammate Mauro Baldi of Italy finished one lap behind.