Gordon Makes Up Ground, Bumps His Way to Victory

Jeff Gordon did it the hard way Sunday at Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., coming from behind to win on a track where passing is supposed to be all but impossible.

He made plenty of passes as he charged from 20th place to catch Bobby Hamilton, who was as surprised as anyone to find himself in the lead late in the Save Mart-Kragen 350-kilometer race.

“It’s amazing what a good Chevrolet Monte Carlo will do for you,” Hamilton said after winding up second in his best road racing performance ever. “I don’t have a clue what to do around these places.”

But Gordon would find that hard to believe.

“I didn’t know if I could catch Bobby, then I didn’t know if I could pass him, then I didn’t know if I could keep him behind me,” Gordon said.

It was his fourth victory of the season and the 33rd of his career.

Gordon, the two-time and defending Winston Cup champion, led early in the race and was locked in a battle for the top spot with Dale Jarrett until both pitted on lap 37.

A number of other drivers decided to make their first stops later, leaving Gordon 18th after his stop. Gordon didn’t get back to the top until he bumped past Hamilton in the final of 11 turns--the slow hairpin--on lap 102 of the 112-lap, 218-mile event.

“There’s no other place to pass out there,” said Gordon, who won $160,675.

The track was shortened from 2.52 miles to 1.95 miles by cutting out the three-turn Carousel and replacing it with the faster but shorter Chute, a short straightaway and a sweeping right-hand turn.

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Tony Stewart almost gave away an 11-second lead late in the race but hung on to win the New England 200 at the New Hampshire International Speedway in Loudon, N.H., for his second Indy Racing League victory of the season.

It was almost a repeat performance of two years ago, when Stewart was leading by two laps when he pulled into the pits on the 182nd lap and never came out.

Stewart, who took the lead on the 163rd lap, had to worry about Scott Goodyear, who rapidly began cutting into the 11-second lead as Stewart got caught in traffic. The margin dwindled to 1.7 seconds by the 183rd lap, and two laps later, it was one second.

But Goodyear could get no closer.

Billy Boat, the polesitter who won last week at Texas, was involved in a multi-car accident on the 96th lap and suffered a broken left thigh bone. He was hospitalized and will be transferred to an Indianapolis hospital today.

In the companion New Hamshpire 125 at Loudon, Mike Stefanik of Coventry, R.I., became the first driver in NASCAR’s Featherlite Modified Series history to pass $1 million in career earnings when he won the race.

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Defending Winston drag racing champion Gary Scelzi of Fresno notched his first top fuel victory of the season in a close final round with Kenny Bernstein at the second annual Sears Craftsman Nationals at Madison, Ill.

Scelzi’s dragster covered the quarter-mile in 4.711 seconds at 300.60 mph, while Bernstein’s machine smoked the tires near the finish line and ran 4.858 at 288.73.

Frank Pedregon of Alta Loma earned his second consecutive funny car victory.

Motor Racing Notes

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George says he hopes to bring Formula One racing to his track by 2000, ahead of his rivals in other American cities. “I happen to think we offer them the best possibility of success,” George told the Indianapolis Star while in Loudon for the New England 200. “I think we have a good chance.” . . . Despite another light crowd for an IRL race, owner Bob Bahre of the New Hampshire International Speedway says he won’t force Winston Cup ticket holders to buy IRL tickets. “I’ll never do that,” he said.