Martin Doesn’t Tire and Wins

Mark Martin emerged unscathed from near-constant hazards brought by a track record-tying 17 caution flags Sunday and his late-race gamble on old tires paid off in a victory in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series Goody’s 500 at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va.

Martin wasn’t a factor as Rusty Wallace dominated the first 436 laps, but he went ahead for the first time when he stayed on the track during a caution with 64 laps to go. Martin never let teammate Jeff Burton get close during the run to the finish.

“Once we got to the lead, man, I just ran like a dog, you know, ran like a dog,” Martin said after his 32nd career victory, this one by 1.5 seconds. He became the eighth different winner in as many Winston Cup races, a record for the start of a season. The overall record is 13 consecutive different winners, set in 1961.

Burton, Martin’s teammate with Jack Roush Racing, finished second, followed by Michael Waltrip, Jeff Gordon and defending points champion Dale Jarrett. It was the first one-two finish for Roush drivers since August 1998.

Wallace, who led 343 laps, finished 10th. Defending champion John Andretti, third when the race went to green for a six-lap dash to the finish, was hit from behind by Waltrip in a pileup in the first turn, ended up on the strip of grass in the turn and finished 14th.

When Jerry Nadeau hit the wall in turns three and four on the 436th lap, Wallace and the rest of the leaders--including No. 2 Dale Earnhardt and No. 3 Ward Burton--pitted for tires, putting Martin in front.

Wallace, who routinely pulled away from his challengers all day, was 10th after the stops, nowhere near as strong and never got back into contention.

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Kenny Bernstein won the top fuel final in the NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals at Las Vegas, beating Joe Amato in a tire-smoking duel.

Bernstein, a 23-time winner in NHRA’s top division, had a quarter-mile run of 4.907 seconds with a top speed of 282.78 mph. Amato, who lost traction, finished in 5.213 seconds with a top speed of 314.09 mph.

Jim Epler raced to his third career funny car victory and first since 1993, beating Tony Pedregon in the final. Epler had a winning run of 4.983 seconds at 302.21 mph, while Pedregon lost traction near the finish in a run of 5.417 seconds at 197.02 mph.

Jeg Coughlin won his third pro stock title of the season, defeating Warren Johnson. Coughlin finished in 7.072 seconds at 195.56 mph, and Johnson had a run of 7.100 seconds at 195.51 mph.

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Michael Schumacher, who promised to make Ferrari fans happy, did so in driving to victory--1.1 seconds ahead of Finland’s Mika Hakkinen--in the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, Italy.

The third consecutive season victory and the second consecutive in the race also might help Schumacher fulfill another promise: Ferrari’s first world drivers title since 1979.

Schumacher has 30 points in the championship standings and a 24-point lead over Hakkinen, the defending world champion.

The second-place finish gave the McLaren driver his first points of the season. He failed to finish in the previous Grand Prixs in Australia and Brazil.

Hakkinen, who started from the pole position with Schumacher second, led by nearly five seconds at the halfway point of the race, but began losing most of his lead by the 43rd lap.

Schumacher took the lead at the end of the 44th lap, when Hakkinen made his second pit stop. The German driver pitted for the second time with 14 laps left, came out with a lead of 3.7 seconds over Hakkinen, and stayed in front through the end of the 62-lap race.

Schumacher averaged 124.247 mph.