NEWSWIRE : Stewart Holds Off Labonte for Victory at Richmond

Rookie sensation Tony Stewart, hampered early by slower pit stops than the rest of the leaders, made up for them with the best car of the bunch to win the Exide 400 on Saturday night at Richmond, Va., his first NASCAR Winston Cup victory.

Stewart’s Joe Gibbs Pontiac teammate, Bobby Labonte, took advantage of lapped traffic to close in on Stewart with about 20 laps to go, but the 1997 Indy Racing League champion used the slower cars to his advantage to keep Labonte at bay.

Labonte finished second, 1.114 seconds behind.

Stewart led 333 laps, including the last 144. He averaged 104.006 mph and moved into fourth place in the point standings.

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Defending world champion Mika Hakkinen of Finland set a lap record of 157.463 mph in qualifying for the Formula One Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

Golf

Under swirling, deceptive winds, in thick rough and on rock-hard greens, Lee Janzen managed to offset his mistakes with a barrage of birdies on the final nine holes to take a one-stroke lead over Hal Sutton in the Canadian Open at Oakville.

Janzen who has 21 birdies in 54 holes, finished at four-under-par 68, putting him at 11-under 205. Janzen is one stroke ahead of Sutton, who made birdies on four of the last six holes for a 70, and two ahead of Paul Azinger, who hasn’t won since the 1993 PGA Championship.

Mike McCullough, winless in all 531 of his previous pro tournaments, shot a career-, course- and tournament-record 10-under 62 to take the lead at 131, one shot ahead of Gil Morgan, after two rounds of the Comfort Classic at Indianapolis. Tom Watson, making his senior debut, struggled with his short game and shot a 69 to join six others at 135.

Karrie Webb shot a seven-under 65, to take a one-stroke lead over Se Ri Pak and Laura Davies at the Samsung World Championship of Women’s Golf at Maple Grove, Minn. . . . The United States rallied twice--both in morning foursomes and afternoon singles--to lead the Britain-Ireland team, 7-5, after the opening day of the Walker Cup at Nairn, Scotland.

Miscellany

Atlanta officials bidding for the 1996 Olympics offered perks to children of members of the IOC, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in today’s editions. Atlanta organizers helped the sons and daughters of IOC members get into Georgia colleges, offered to help them find jobs and paid for trips to New York and Disney World, the newspaper reported.

Gabriela Szabo (3,000 meters) and Bernard Barmasai (3,000-meter steeplechase) captured the overall titles and earned $250,000 each by winning their events at the IAAF Grand Prix Final at Munich, Germany. . . . The Baltimore Sun reported that high school basketball player Tamir Goodman, an Orthodox Jew who had committed to Maryland, turned down the offer because of friction with the coaching staff over his refusal to play on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.