Bliss Runs Out of Fuel, Loses

Scott Riggs raced to his third NASCAR Busch Series victory Saturday, winning the Charter Pipeline 250 when Mike Bliss ran out of fuel on the final lap at Madison, Ill.

“Never give up! Never give up!” Riggs shouted as he climbed out of his car. “We’ve lost them this way before, but this is the first time I’ve had to win this way. I thought we had another second place today. I couldn’t believe he ran out of fuel.”

The Ford driver was about three seconds behind when Bliss slowed down between the first and second turns on the 1.25-mile Gateway International Raceway track.

Bliss, who ended up 12th, made his last pit stop on lap 108 after a crash involving six cars. The 2002 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion thought he had more than enough fuel to complete the final 93 laps of the 200-lap race.

“It’s frustrating,” Bliss said “We had this race won. We had until [lap] 210 to run on fuel. I don’t know what happened, but we shouldn’t have run out of fuel.”

David Green finished second, 0.543 seconds behind Riggs, to take a five-point lead over Todd Bodine in the point standings.

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Sebastien Bourdais, a 24-year-old French rookie, won the pole for the German 500 at Klettwitz, and will try to win his second straight Championship Auto Racing Teams race today after winning Monday at Brands Hatch, England.

After four road courses, Bourdais faced his first American-style oval race at the EuroSpeedway. He clocked a track-record 37 seconds on the 2.023-mile course at an average speed of 196.832 mph to win his third pole in five races.

Bourdais edged Newman-Haas teammate Bruno Junqueira, who clocked 37.211. They were followed by Michel Jourdain (37.274) of Team Rahal and Mario Haberfeld (37.392) of Mi-Jack Conquest.

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Crashes marred a long night of racing as Greg Pursley and Rip Michels won one race each in the Jani-King Super Late Model series twin 50-lap features at Irwindale Speedway in front of 5,328 fans.

In the first 50-lap race, Pursley’s win over second-place finisher Tony Bruncati and third-place finisher David Gilliland, who returned to the series for the first time since the opening race of the 2002 season, had some unusual circumstances.

Chino Hills’ Tim Woods had the lead on lap 44 when he collided with Pursley going into Turn 3 and spun out. The race was then stopped because Woods parked his car in the middle of the infield, got out of the car and sat down in the middle of the start/finish line before walking off the track, escorted by the Irwindale Police Department.

According to race officials, Woods faces a fine and the possible revocation of his license by NASCAR, which would end his racing season at Irwindale, but also in the Winston West and Craftsman Truck Series.