MOTOR SPORTS ROUNDUP : Earnhardt’s Win Ends His Short-Track Slump

A new car Dale Earnhardt didn’t even want helped the six-time Winston Cup champion get back to his old self.

Earnhardt, reluctantly using a 2-year-old car for the first time Sunday, snapped out of an uncharacteristic short-track slump by bulling his way to the front and pulling away for a dominating victory in the Food City 500 at Bristol, Tenn.

“I ought to have been running the car sooner,” Earnhardt said after relaying the tale about how he had tested the car several times recently, but had balked at using it in a race. “I didn’t think it was capable of winning.”

But car owner Richard Childress wouldn’t back down, and the Chevrolet Lumina’s performance proved Earnhardt wrong.

Tire troubles and wrecks by his closest pursuers helped Earnhardt lead the last 183 laps at Bristol International Raceway and record the 61st victory of his career and his second in a row.

It was Earnhardt’s 24th short-track victory, but his first since winning in North Wilkesboro, N.C., in October, 1991.

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Still leading when a red flag stopped the race after the 25th lap, Troy Corser of Australia was declared the winner of the American Motorcyclist Assn. LA Superbike Championship at the Pomona Fairplex.

“Everybody else jumped the start, but I didn’t,” said Corser, who quickly fell from the pole position to sixth place before overtaking Colin Edwards on lap 16. “But I wasn’t too worried.”

It was Edwards who had to worry when his engine began spitting oil onto his tires on the first turn of lap 26. In third place at the time, Edwards slipped into a hay bale as his bike caught fire. He escaped injury as the race was called.

Takahiro Sohwa of Japan finished second, and Steve Crevier of Canada was third.

In winning his second Superbike race of the this season, Corser said he decided to let Edwards lead the way on a bumpy track.

“I was happy to sit behind him,” said Corser, 22. “Then I went for the break. Lucky for me because if I didn’t, I might have been behind him when he crashed.”