Wheldon gets a win as a birthday gift

Dan Wheldon celebrated his 30th birthday in style Sunday, winning the Iowa Corn Indy 250 at Newton for his second Indy Racing League victory of the season.

“What a great day for Target Chip Ganassi Racing and a great birthday present for me,” Wheldon said.

Wheldon plans to donate his winnings to the victims of Iowa’s recent floods and tornadoes.

Wheldon took the lead out of a caution flag 60 laps from the finish while almost every other driver took a pit stop. Wheldon guessed correctly that his old tires would do the trick, and he then held off Andretti Green drivers Hideki Mutoh and Marco Andretti down the stretch.

“My car was just so loose with new tires,” Wheldon said. “Staying out was important. I had good restarts on the older tires.”

Mutoh, the current rookie leader, finished a career-best second. Andretti pulled off his best finish since also placing third in the Indianapolis 500.

Pole sitter Scott Dixon, winner of two of the last three races entering Iowa, fell back early and had to rally to finish fourth.

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A day after funny car driver Scott Kalitta was killed in a qualifying accident, five-time world champion Tony Schumacher raced to his first top-fuel win in 12 tries in the Lucas Oil NHRA SuperNationals at Englishtown, N.J.

The event was overshadowed by the death of Kalitta. He died from multiple injuries after his car went out of control in the fourth round of qualifying Saturday.

“With the passing of Scott Kalitta yesterday, today’s race was extremely tough to get through from an emotional standpoint. But we managed to take care of business like Scott would have wanted us to,” Schumacher said.

Schumacher had a 4.589-second run at 325.06 mph to defeat Brandon Bernstein for his 46th win, moving him to within six of Joe Amato (52) for most top-fuel wins ever.

Tim Wilkerson (funny car), Greg Anderson (pro stock) and Chip Ellis (pro stock motorcycle) also won in their divisions.

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Felipe Massa of Ferrari won the French Grand Prix at Magny Cours and moved atop the overall standings after his third Formula One victory of the season.

Massa overtook teammate and pole sitter Kimi Raikkonen with 32 laps to go and held on to win by 17.9 seconds. It is the second consecutive Ferrari sweep at the Circuit de Nevers.

Massa leads the title race with 48 points -- two points ahead of Robert Kubica of BMW Sauber, who finished fifth. Raikkonen trails Massa by five points in third.