Labonte Thwarts Little For Road Win
Auto racing
Terry Labonte survived a race-long duel with Chad Little to win the Lysol 200 NASCAR Busch Grand National stock car race Sunday at Watkins Glen, N.Y.
Labonte, driving a Chevrolet, won for the second straight year and third time in five years in the only road course event on the Grand National schedule.
Labonte and Spokane’s Little, a three-time winner this season, exchanged the lead four times during the 200-mile race on the 2.45-mile course, but Labonte took the lead for the final time on lap 48 and led the rest of the 82-lap distance.
“My car seemed to be better in long runs,” said Labonte, a two-time winner this season on the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. “Chad’s car was better on a restart, but once we got going, I could get away from him.”
Little’s Ford finished 3.88 seconds behind, with the Chevrolets of Ricky Craven, Mike McLaughlin and Jeff Green completing the top five.
Labonte won $20,370 and averaged 84.186 mph.
Unser DQ’d in G.I. Joe 200
Al Unser Jr., his car cited for a technical violation, was disqualified 3 hours after easily winning the Budweiser-G.I. Joe’s 200 IndyCar race in Portland.
Jimmy Vasser, who had finished nearly a half lap behind in second at Portland International Raceway, was awarded his first IndyCar victory in 48 starts.
It is the first such disqualification of an apparent winner in the IndyCar series since Tom Sneva at Milwaukee in 1983.
Kirk Russell, vice president of competition for IndyCar, the series’ sanctioning body, said Unser’s Penske-Mercedes was found after the race to have less than the required 2 inches of ground clearance.
Unser’s car had been bottoming out throughout the race, sending white smoke from its compressed board skidpads attached to the underbody of the car.
Unser, who had moved into the PPG Cup points lead with what would have been his second win of the year and the 29th of his career, was stripped of the 21 points he had earned and was not scored in the final race standings.
The revised results also left Jacques Villeneuve and Robby Gordon tied for the series lead with 81 points. Gordon finished seventh, a lap off the pace, and Villeneuve, the record-setting pole-winner, who dueled with Unser through the first half of the race, wound up 19th, sidelined by a broken suspension part.
Roger Penske, owner of Marlboro Team Penske, which fields cars for Unser and Emerson Fittipaldi, filed an immediate protest and issued a statement.
It said, in part, “Penske’s position is that the car experienced a mechanical failure (re: the rear skid plate was broken off the car as a result of the car riding over uneven surfaces on the race track).”
Penske’s statement further pointed out the car was inspected repeatedly during the weekend and passed in every case.
If the protest is turned down, as expected, Penske would have three business days to file an appeal. If the appeal is rejected, the matter could be taken to a special committee appointed by IndyCar.
“The team worked really hard. Nothing was wrong with what happened to the car today. It was something that IndyCar saw as a rules violation,” Unser said.