Victory Gives Montoya Record for CART Rookies

It didn’t take long for CART team owner Chip Ganassi to see his new race track pay dividends.

A near-sellout crowd of almost 70,000 saw Ganassi’s top driver, rookie Juan Montoya, win the inaugural Target Grand Prix at Chicago Motor Speedway, the construction of which Ganassi and Charles Bidwell III funded.

Montoya, the impressive rookie from Colombia, picked up his second consecutive victory and sixth of the season and regained the series points lead by four points over Dario Franchitti.

Montoya started 10th but showed early he was going to be a contender, charging through the pack to fifth over the first 10 laps of the 225-lap event.

Montoya, 23, who broke Nigel Mansell’s 1993 rookie record of five victories, said the team stayed late Saturday night to work on the car, which had been slow and difficult to drive.

“The changes were great. We were fast in the morning [warmup] and initially I was really aggressive in the race,” he said. “I took it easy for a while after that, but then the car was really flying and that was it.”

Montoya took the lead from pole-sitter Max Papis on lap 64 and stayed at or near the front the rest of the way, leading a race-high 132 laps.

Montoya’s lead never was more than one second over the final 41 laps, but he maintained his edge to finish 0.783 seconds ahead of Franchitti’s Reynard-Honda.

Montoya now leads Franchitti, 172-168, in the season points. Jimmy Vasser, Montoya’s Target/Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, made the owner’s day even brighter by finishing third.

*

After Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon wore each other out battling for the lead late in the NASCAR Pepsi 400 at Brooklyn, Mich., Bobby Labonte shot past both of them on lap 183 for his fourth victory of the season and third at the superspeedway, before a crowd of 153,532.

Once in the lead, Labonte pulled away from Gordon, whom he wound up defeating by 0.865 seconds, averaging 144.332 mph.

Earnhardt’s Chevy began to lose traction in the turns, and he fell back, finishing fifth behind Tony Stewart and Dale Jarrett.

*

John Force won for the eighth time in the NHRA Winston drag racing season, defeating Whit Bazemore with a time of 4.929 seconds over the quarter-mile track in the Colonels Truck Accessories NHRA Nationals at Brainerd (Minn.) International Speedway. It was Force’s 78th career victory.

Boxing

Brian Viloria and Ricardo Williams Jr. moved into to the quarterfinals of the World Amateur Boxing Championships at Houston, marking the first time since 1995 a U.S. fighter has advanced that far.

Viloria, of Waipahu, Hawaii, defeated Rudolf Dydi of the Slovak Republic, 9-4, in a 106-pound fight, and Williams, of Cincinnati, outpointed Victor Castro of Argentina, 9-2, in the 139-pound division. Also, Russia and surprising Uzbekistan each had three team members advance to the quarterfinals with second-round wins.

Miscellany

Two world records fell at the Pan Pacific swimming championships at Sydney, Australia. Australian Ian Thorpe, 16, smashed the world 400-meter freestyle record set in 1994 by countryman Kieren Perkins by almost two seconds with a time of 3 minutes 41.83 seconds. Penny Heyns of South Africa broke the world record for the women’s 100-meter breaststroke with a time of 1:06.52, breaking her own record of 1:06.95 set at Los Angeles in June. It was her fifth world record of the month.

The Dallas Burn scored on all four shots in a shootout and edged the Chicago Fire, 4-3, in a Major League Soccer game before 7,237 at Dallas. . . . The Tampa Bay Mutiny outscored the Columbus Crew, 3-0, in a shootout for a 2-1 victory before 19,070 at Columbus, Ohio.

Former St. Louis Blues forward Tony Twist says injuries from an Aug. 9 motorcycle accident will sideline him for this season and possibly longer. He broke and dislocated his pelvis, broke a toe and tore two ligaments in his left knee.

Brazilian Luiz Antonio dos Santos won the Rio half-marathon at Brazil, outlasting 1998 winner John Gwako of Kenya by two seconds with a time of 1 hour 3 minutes 40 seconds. Margareth Okayo won the women’s race in 1:12.07 to lead a 1-2-3 Kenyan sweep.

Casey Gaynor gave up one hit in his fifth consecutive shutout as Toms River, N.J., began defense of its Little League World Series title with a 6-0 victory over Phenix City, Ala., at Williamsport, Pa. In international play, Kazuki Sumiyama and Kazutoshi Adachi combined on a two-hitter as Osaka, Japan, defeated Victoria, Canada, 7-3.

Chris Jefferies, expected to be the top returner from last season’s Arkansas basketball team, says he will not play for the Razorbacks and will instead enroll at Fresno State in his hometown. Jefferies, started 21 of 34 games last year as a freshman and averaged 7.7 points.

Brazil defeated reigning Olympic and world champion Cuba, 3-1, at Manila in world women’s grand prix volleyball play.