MOTOR RACING ROUNDUP : Tire Flat, Gas Gone, but He Wins Anyway

With his engine sputtering and one of his tires flattened, Rusty Wallace redefined victory in one word--luck.

“I was fortunate to win today,” Wallace said. “Under any other circumstances I couldn’t have made it.”

In a bizarre conclusion Sunday to the SplitFire 500 in Dover, Del., Wallace led a frustrated field of racers across the finish line at a virtual standstill pace.

He won after limping one final time around the one-mile Dover Downs International Speedway as the race finished under a caution flag.

Right behind him with gas and tires, but fresh out of laps, were Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip.

Wallace was lucky to keep his car moving. Earnhardt might have won had the car stopped at any time on the final lap.

“He pulled up alongside me and pointed to his gas tank, and said, ‘Me, too,’ ” Wallace said. “So I don’t know.”

Neither did Earnhardt, whose lead over Wallace in the Winston Cup points chase was reduced by five to 227 with six races left.

“I was about out of fuel there at the end, but I really think I could have beaten him if it had been restarted,” Earnhardt said. “Who knows? Somebody might have come up and beat me from behind. We’ll never know now.”

The most likely scenario would have been a victory by Waltrip, which would have ended a two-year winless streak.

“If it had gone green, I couldn’t have won because of the tire,” Wallace said. “I was riding on the apron to get the car flat so it would pick up (drop gas into engine) and I ran over something.”

With Earnhardt nearly out of gas, Waltrip probably could have maintained power because he was the last of the leaders to pit and should have had more in his tank.

Wallace also was fortunate to have been in contention at the end.

First, Mark Martin, one of a record-tying 12 drivers to lead in the fiercely contested event, blew a big lead and eventually crashed.

Then, with two laps left and NASCAR ready to end the last of 13 caution periods with a one-mile shootout--which Wallace could not have completed--Rick Mast and Sterling Marlin ran out of fuel. That necessitated a finish under caution and negated a final showdown between Earnhardt and Waltrip.

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Paul Tracy finally got his first oval-track victory, leading a 1-2-3 sweep by Marlboro Team Penske in the Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix at Nazareth, Pa.

Taking the lead from pole-winning teammate Emerson Fittipaldi on the first lap around the one-mile oval on the Roger Penske-owned Nazareth Speedway, Tracy led 192 of the 200 laps.

Al Unser Jr., who clinched the Indy-car PPG Cup championship a week earlier with a second-place finish at Elkhart Lake, Wis., finished second again, outdueling Fittipaldi, who wrapped up the runner-up spot in the championship with Sunday’s third-place finish.

It was the fifth Penske sweep of the season.

Tracy earned the seventh victory of his career--all of them for Penske. He moved past Michael Andretti into third place in the season standings.

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Scott Kalitta (top fuel), , John Force (funny car), Darrell Alderman (pro stock) and David Schultz (pro stock motorcycle) won titles at the NHRA Pioneer Electronics Keystone Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway in Mohnton, Pa.