Robby Gordon Is King of Road

Robby Gordon stretched his fuel over the final 39 laps to complete a sweep of this year’s NASCAR Winston Cup Series road-course races with a victory Sunday at Watkins Glen, N.Y.

The sweep was the first in NASCAR since Jeff Gordon won both road-course events in 1998.

The key for Gordon, who also won at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma in June, was pitting when Rusty Wallace went off the course in his Dodge on the 51st of 90 laps.

“I saw Rusty lock up the right front tire, and I called and said, ‘Rusty’s in the sand,’ ” Gordon said.

Crew chief Kevin Hamlin reacted quickly.

“We heard the guy on the loudspeaker say, ‘trouble,’ so we decided to dive in for gas,” Hamlin said.

He called Gordon and said, “Pit now, pit now.”

That move paid off when Gordon took the lead after those still in front of him pitted on lap 61.

“Track position is so important,” he said. “I don’t know if we had the best car today, but we won. That’s what teamwork is all about.”

Gordon’s Chevrolet beat Scott Pruett’s Dodge by 2.33 seconds to win the $4-million Sirius at the Glen. Gordon led only once, for the final 30 laps.

It was the best career finish for Pruett, a former Winston Cup driver who has spent most of his career in sports car racing and the Championship Auto Racing Teams series.

Jeff Gordon had the best car, a Chevrolet, but the worst luck. He started on the pole and was last after one lap because Greg Biffle spun him out on the first turn.

Then the four-time series champion spent the rest of the day trying to catch up. He eventually reached third, but ran out of gas on the final turn and was knocked into the wall by Kevin Harvick.

“I was trying to get out of his way, but when you’re out of gas you don’t have too many options,” said Gordon, who finished 33rd.

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Paul Tracy won for the first time at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington and moved back into the lead in the Championship Auto Racing Teams driver standings with his victory in the Mid-Ohio Grand Prix.

Tracy, who had finished second four times in 10 previous appearances at Mid-Ohio, averaged 106.251 mph in his Ford-Cosworth/Lola and won by 0.51 seconds over Player’s-Forsythe teammate Patrick Carpentier in the first one-two finish for the team.

Rookie Ryan Hunter-Reay, who started second in a Ford-Cosworth/Reynard, finished a career-best third.

Tracy pulled away from the field to take a big lead at the start and led 69 of the 92 laps, losing the lead only on pit stops for 13 laps to Adrian Fernandez and 10 laps to Tiago Monteiro.

Tracy’s career-high sixth victory of the season gave him a 20-point lead in the driver standings over Bruno Junqueira.

He won the maximum 23 points for the race -- 20 for winning, one for leading the most laps and two for being the top qualifier Friday and Saturday.

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Helio Castroneves drove without any cockpit electronics in his Dallara-Toyota to win the Indy Racing League Emerson Indy 250 at Madison, Ill., and end his 20-race winless streak.

Castroneves, whose last victory was the 2002 Indianapolis 500, got a big break when Scott Dixon dropped out with a gearbox problem in his Panoz G Force-Toyota while leading with 43 of 200 laps remaining.

Castroneves ran the entire race with no readout on his steering wheel, meaning that he had to make his own decisions when to shift and had to guess on fuel.

Castroneves inherited the lead and was less than a second in front of Tony Kanaan’s Dallara-Honda, but Kanaan was never able to mount a challenge and Castroneves crossed the finish line 0.847 seconds -- about six car-lengths -- in front.

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Rip Michels extended his lead in the Super Late Model Series and made a bid to regain the top spot in the NASCAR Dodge Weekly Racing Series by winning both 50-lap feature races Saturday night at Irwindale Raceway in front of 4,898.