Vasser Dominates Race in Australia

Pole-winner Jimmy Vasser won his second race of the PPG Championship season, leading for all but five laps to take the Australian Indy Car Grand Prix at Surfers Paradise today.

Vasser, in his Target Reynard Honda, held off second-place and fellow American Scott Pruett in the 65-lap, 181.675-mile race on the 2.794-mile Surfers Paradise temporary street course.

It was the third victory in three races for Honda-powered cars--Vasser won at Miami and Andre Ribeiro at Rio de Janeiro.

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Britain’s Damon Hill won the pole position for the Brazilian Grand Prix with a speed of 121.535 mph, fighting off a surprise challenge from Sao Paulo hometown favorite Rubens Barichello.

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Mark Martin won his second Busch Grand National race in a row, taking the Goody’s Headache Powders 250 in a Ford at 0.533-mile Bristol International Speedway in Tennessee. Martin earned $24,335 and averaged 85.783 mph, beating Jeff Green to the finish line by about four car lengths.

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Dick Trickle, substituting for injured Loy Allen Jr. and the slowest of 42 qualifiers in the first round, improved to 121.412 mph to make the 37-car field for today’s Food City 500 race on the NASCAR Winston Cup series in Bristol.

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Scott Kalitta (top fuel), John Force (funny cars) and Warren Johnson (pro stock) were the top qualifiers in their respective divisions for today’s NHRA Slick 50 Nationals in Baytown, Texas.

Boxing

Ireland’s Wayne McCullough finished with a bloodied nose, a swollen face and sore ribs in Dublin, but also with a split-decision victory over Mexico’s Jose Luis Bueno that allowed him to retain his World Boxing Council bantamweight title.

Miscellany

Kenya’s Paul Tergat trimmed an amazing 56 seconds off the world half-marathon record, leading three of his countrymen across the finish line in Milan, Italy, in 58 minutes 51 seconds for the 13.1 miles. Tergat led from start to finish through downtown Milan and easily beat the former mark, set by Moses Tanui in 1993.

Catcher Thomas Eaton and utility player Alfred Snell of Phoenix’s South Mountain Community College baseball team were killed when a van in which they were riding with 11 others overturned on an interstate highway while en route to a game in Douglas, Ariz.

Officials said the van blew a tire and swerved onto the median, flipping at least once.

Four players were hospitalized, one in critical condition, for various injuries.

The president of a French soccer club in Calvi, Corsica, whose name was not given, was shot to death and the club’s coach, Rolland Courbis, 43, was seriously wounded when four gunmen opened fire during a fifth-division match in the town of Hyeres in the south of France. A gangland feud was believed involved.

Gilbert Schaller moved within a match of defending the only pro title he has ever won when he beat Alberto Berasategui, 7-6 (10-8), 7-5, in the semifinals of the King Hassan II Casablanca Open tennis tournament in Morocco. Unseeded Tomas Carbonell is the other finalist after beating Andrei Chesnokov, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1.

Steve Hoskins claimed his fourth Professional Bowlers Assn. title and $50,000 with a 250-202 victory over Brian Voss in the finals of the Sunrise, Fla., event.

Former British elite player Steve Butler defeated 1993 champion Andy Chong of Miami Lakes, Fla., 15-6, 15-8, to move into the finals of the U.S. National Badminton Championships at Atlanta. Butler, of Miller Place, N.Y., will face 1996 Olympic hopeful Kevin Han for the championship.

Tang Yeping and Andrea Andersson will play in the women’s final.

The International Ice Hockey Federation in Zurich announced the formation of a 20-team European League, starting in September with the NHL sponsoring teams to join it in 1997.

Army Sgt. Daryl L. Szarenski shot 680.5 halfway through the final round in Atlanta and leads Neal Caloia (677.5) in the air pistol portion of the U.S. Olympic shooting trials.

Swimming

Michigan’s Tom Dolan added the 1,650-yard freestyle title to his other two weekend titles to become the first triple winner in consecutive NCAA meets since Matt Biondi in 1986 and 1987.

The host school, Texas, won its sixth title and first since 1991, despite not winning an individual event. The Longhorns had 479 points, 45.5 more than second-place Auburn (433.5), the pre-meet favorite.

Names in the News

Former UCLA basketball coach Walt Hazzard, 53, who suffered a stroke March 22, was upgraded from critical to stable condition at UCLA Medical Center.