Labonte Wins, Approaches Ripken-like Record

Terry Labonte drove into the record books Sunday with a performance befitting NASCAR’s Iron Man, out-dueling teammate Jeff Gordon to win the First Union 400 at North Wilkesboro, N.C.

Career victory No. 17 came on the day Labonte tied Richard Petty’s Winston Cup record by starting his 513th consecutive race. Labonte, who began his streak in January 1979, can break the record by starting next week’s event in Martinsville, Va.

Labonte, who started his Chevrolet Monte Carlo on the pole at North Wilkesboro Speedway and led six times for 167 laps, appeared headed for a second-place finish behind Rusty Wallace. But Wallace collided with the lapped car of John Andretti on lap 374 of the 400-lap event.

Labonte barely beat Gordon out of the pits on the subsequent caution and held him off the rest of the way in a 16-lap sprint that featured very tight, but clean, racing.

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Blaine Johnson, John Force and Warren Johnson were winners at the eighth annual Winston Select Invitational at Rockingham (N.C.) Dragway, a non-points race featuring the top names from the 19-race NHRA Winston Drag Racing Series.

Johnson, the No. 1 qualifier from Santa Maria, Calif., took the Top Fuel category. Force, from Yorba Linda, collected his third Winston Select Invitational Funny Car title. And Johnson, of Duluth, Ga., won in Pro Stock.

Tennis

Top-seeded Pete Sampras defeated two-time defending champion Michael Chang, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, to win the $328,000 Salem Open at Hong Kong and regain his No. 1 ranking on the ATP Tour.

Sampras took over the top spot from Thomas Muster, despite the Austrian’s 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 victory over Italian Andrea Gaudenzi in the final of the Estoril Open in Estoril, Portugal. . . . Top-seeded Thomas Enqvist of Sweden overpowered third-seeded Byron Black of Zimbabwe, 6-2, 7-6 (7-3), to win the Indian Open at New Delhi.

Irina Spirlea of Romania, seeded eighth, became the lowest-seeded player ever to win the Bausch and Lomb Championships when she defeated Mary Pierce, 6-7 (9-7), 6-4, 6-3, at Amelia Island, Fla. Only twice in the 17-year history of the Bausch and Lomb has a player other than a No. 1 or No. 2 seed won the tournament.

Miscellany

Cyrus Beasley and Ruth Ann Davidon earned Olympic berths after winning the men’s and women’s single sculls at the U.S. Olympic rowing trials in Gainesville, Ga. Adam Holland and Mike Peterson won the men’s pair. Karen Kraft and Melissa Schwen also earned Olympic-team spots by winning the women’s pair.

Professional bull rider Jerry Lynn Melvin died after being thrown from a bull and trampled at a rodeo at Alexandria, Ala. Melvin was on the bull for about five seconds Friday night at the Brown Ranch Rodeo when the bull threw the rider in the air. Melvin landed on his back and had his chest crushed under the bull’s hoof.

More than a thousand runners took to Sarajevo’s war-battered and snow-covered streets to compete in the 13th annual Vivicitta, an international race to support peace at Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Second-seeded Sandra Pires and Jackie Silva defeated fellow Brazilians Monica Rodriguez and Adriana Samuel to win the opening tournament of the 1996 FIVB Women’s Beach Volleyball Championship Series at Maceio, Brazil.