Hamlin finishes first; Almirola gets the win

After missing the start of the race because his helicopter couldn’t find a place to land, Denny Hamlin rallied to take the checkered flag in the NASCAR Busch Series AT&T; 250 at the Milwaukee Mile in West Allis, Wis., Saturday night.

But because a substitute driver, Aric Almirola, started the race in Hamlin’s car, NASCAR officially will credit Almirola with the victory.

It was the first time a relief driver had won a race in one of NASCAR’s top three national racing series since Darrell Waltrip won at Talladega Superspeedway in place of Donnie Allison on Aug. 7, 1977.

Hamlin, one of a handful of drivers splitting time between the Nextel Cup race at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma and the Busch race in Milwaukee this weekend, arrived late to the racetrack and took over the Chevrolet from Almirola during an early pit stop.

Hamlin steadily moved through traffic throughout the race and finally took the lead with 78 laps to go -- then saw one of his main competitors fall out of contention when Busch Series points leader Carl Edwards made an unscheduled pit stop to change an apparent flat tire.

Hamlin was shuffled back to fourth on the final round of pit stops, giving Scott Wimmer the race lead. But Hamlin regained the lead with 13 laps to go, moving past Wimmer and Jason Leffler in Turn 1.

Wimmer finished second and Leffler finished third.

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Sebastien Bourdais won the pole for today’s Champ Car World Series Grand Prix of Cleveland by holding off rookie Simon Pagenaud.

Bourdais had a best lap of 56.363 seconds on the 2.106-mile course at Burke Lakefront Airport. It was .080 of a second behind the track record set by A.J. Allmendinger during last year’s qualifying.

Pagenaud finished in 56.388 seconds and will start on the front row alongside Bourdais.

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Scott Dixon had a fast lap of 182.360 mph to win the pole for today’s Indy Racing League Iowa Corn 250 at Newton, Iowa. Helio Castroneves was second at 182.272, and Indy 500 champion Dario Franchitti third at 182.043.

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Ben Spies rode to a seven-second victory in an AMA Superbike event at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah. Spies got off to a fast start on his Yoshimura Suzuki and held on to beat teammate Mat Mladin.