Montoya Doesn’t Save for Rainy Day

Sensational CART FedEx Series rookie Juan Montoya won the rain-shortened Medic Drug Grand Prix of Cleveland on Sunday, his fourth victory in nine races.

“It’s not easy,” said Montoya, a 23-year-old Colombian. “I’m pushing as hard as I can at every track.”

But it didn’t look particularly hard for series points leader Montoya as he cruised to the finish line more than 10 seconds ahead of runner-up Gil de Ferran.

The checkered flag was shown at the end of lap 90--10 before the scheduled finish. For several years, CART has adhered to a two-hour time limit to stay within its television window on road course races and at short ovals.

The rain that began on lap 34 and intensified one lap later, turned the 2.106-mile, 10-turn temporary road course at Burke Lakefront Airport into a virtual skating rink for the open-wheel cars.

Several cars slid into walls or tire barriers. Even more skidded through deep puddles and veered off course before most got to the pits to change their slicks to treaded rain tires.

Despite the long yellow for rain, Montoya averaged 93.931 mph.

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Pole-sitter Greg Ray held off a fast-closing Sam Schmidt by about one car length to win the Indy Racing League’s Radisson 200 at Fountain, Colo.--his first career victory. Ray averaged 134.111 mph.

Series points leader Scott Goodyear was 12th.

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Heinz-Harald Frentzen of Germany and his Jordan team mastered wet conditions to win the Formula One French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours. Frentzen finish 11 seconds ahead of series-points leader Mika Hakkinen of Finland. Frentzen averaged 92.269 mph.

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. passed Ron Fellows on the final lap to win the Grand National Division Lysol 200 at Watkins Glen, N.Y.--his third consecutive victory in the NASCAR Busch Series that he leads.

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Two cars drove off a track at a road rally in Riga, Latvia, and plowed into a crowd of spectators, killing seven and injuring 14, police told the Baltic News Service.