Hamilton’s Fast Car Is Simply Too Much for Martinsville Field

When a car is as good as Bobby Hamilton’s was Monday, easy does it.

Hamilton overpowered the track and the rest of the 43-car field to win the rain-delayed Goody’s 500 at Martinsville, Va.

He led eight times for 378 of the 500 laps on the .526-mile oval--the shortest track on NASCAR’s Winston Cup circuit--avoiding trouble despite close-quarters racing that produced 14 caution flags for a total of 96 laps.

“When you have such an awesome race car, you just take your time,” said Hamilton, who twice charged back to the lead after falling behind on pit stops.

“This is one of those places where you drive real easy and you run fast,” he added. “But you’ve got to have a good car, and I knew we had one from the start of the race when I got on the outside and passed some guys out there. I thought, ‘Man, we’ve got a horse here today.’ ”

Hamilton started from the pole, so his win was worth an extra $106,400 from the 76 Racing Challenge, which builds at $7,600 until a driver wins from the pole. His total payoff was $227,025.

Hamilton beat runner-up Ted Musgrave to the finish line by 6.376 seconds, about one-third of a lap. The winner averaged 70.709 mph.

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Cory McClenathan and Cruz Pedregon, both driving for former NFL coach Joe Gibbs, were among the winners at the NHRA’s Fram Nationals at Commerce, Ga.

McClenathan won his third top-fuel race of the season, defeating Pat Dakin. Pedregon defeated John Force in the funny car final.

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The Las Vegas 500, the final Indy Racing League event of the season, has been moved from Oct. 10 to Oct. 11, so the race can be run during the day instead of at night.

Jurisprudence

Former Northwestern basketball player Kenneth Dion Lee pleaded guilty to a sports bribery charge at Chicago and agreed to testify against others charged in a point-shaving scheme at the university.

He is the second person to admit involvement in a betting scandal that has embarrassed the Big Ten’s most academically prestigious school. Three people have pleaded innocent in the case.

Lee, 24, admitted he accepted or agreed to accept cash bribes totaling $12,000 from former Notre Dame kicker Kevin Pendergast to fix three games in the winter of 1995.

Lee also admitted recruiting two teammates to be part of the point-shaving scheme--Dewey Williams, who has pleaded not guilty, and Matthew Purdy, who has not been indicted.

The maximum sentence for the charge is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, plus any restitution ordered by the court.

No sentencing date was set.

An arrest warrant was ordered for ex-Dallas Maverick Roy Tarpley, who did not show up Monday for trial at Dallas over a November domestic violence incident.

The former NBA star is accused of using an iron to burn his girlfriend, Lisha Spacek, in a fight over money. Spacek died in a December traffic accident.

An Olympic swimmer testified at Berlin that East German coaches pressured her and others to take steroids even when they tried to resist, and the athletes now have excessive body hair, unnatural muscles or deepened voices.

Christiane Knacke-Sommer, a bronze medalist in the butterfly at the 1980 Moscow Games, is the first East German athlete to testify about the former communist nation’s drug program.

Tennis

Germany’s Boris Becker rallied from a set down to beat the Netherlands’ Jan Siemerink, 5-7, 6-3, 6-1, to advance to the second round of the Monte Carlo Open at Monaco.

Mark Philippousis of Australia outlasted Spain’s Julian Alonso, 7-6 (11-9), 4-6, 6-4. French wild card Sebastien Grosjean defeated qualifier Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador, 6-2, 6-4, and Magnus Norman of Sweden beat Marcelo Filippini of Uruguay, 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7-4).

Pete Sampras, who has a chance to regain the No. 1 ranking, begins play Wednesday.

Justin Gimelstob overcame severe leg cramps to beat second-seeded Jason Stoltenberg of Australia, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, at the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships at Orlando, Fla.

Miscellany

Bob Costas won his 11th Sports Emmy Award and Dick Enberg took home his ninth Monday night as NBC led all networks with seven awards.

Costas won for outstanding play-by-play announcer and Enberg won for outstanding writing with Wimbledon’s “Closing Thoughts.”

Korleone Young, a high school player who declared for the NBA draft, was treated and released from Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood late Sunday after suffering a head injury in the Eddie Jones All-Star Classic at the Great Western Forum.

Arizona’s Jenna Daniels was the only player to finish under par during the first round of the Pacific 10 Conference women’s golf championships at Tijeras Creek in Rancho Santa Margarita. Daniels, a sophomore from Bonita, shot a three-under 69 for the Wildcats, who took a six-stroke lead over Arizona State.

Iran, which plays the U.S. in the first round of this summer’s World Cup, lost to Hungary, 2-0, in a soccer exhibition at Tehran.

Thieves ransacked boxer Joe Bugner’s home while he was successfully defending his Australian heavyweight title Monday night against James “Bonecrusher” Smith at Gold Coast.

The 48-year-old boxer’s car was stolen but later recovered. Jewelry and several thousand dollars in cash were also taken, Bugner said.

A Culver City club filed a letter of intent with the U.S. Figure Skating Assn. to bring the 2002 national championships to Southern California.

Guty Espadas scored a ninth-round knockdown to earn a majority decision over Agapito Sanchez in a 10-round featherweight fight at the Great Western Forum. Espadas improved to 24-2, Sanchez is 27-3. In the co-main event, Tomas Rivera upset former World Boxing Organization junior flyweight champion Jesus Chong. Rivera scored a unanimous decision and improved to 14-3-2. Chong dropped to 31-9.