Qualifying Canceled In Texas

Only six races into the Winston Cup season, the series standings took on added importance when NASCAR canceled qualifying for today’s Interstate Batteries 500.

Because of 3 inches of rain since the beginning of the week, added to an already saturated water table, water boiled up in several places on the new 1-1/2-mile Texas Motor Speedway oval in Fort Worth, delaying the morning schedule.

Instead of the time trials, which already had been postponed by rain both Thursday and Friday, NASCAR chose to give the Winston Cup teams an extended practice session once the track was opened.

Reverting to the rule book, the 43-car field was determined by car-owner points for the first 35 positions and postmarks on entry blanks for the other eight.

Chad Little of Spokane will race out of the 38th position.

Also at the Texas Motor Speedway, Mark Martin squeezed past Jimmy Spencer 13 laps from the end and pulled away for an easy victory in the inaugural Coca-Cola 300 Busch Grand National race.

At Surfers Paradise, Australia, Brazilian driver Christian Fittipaldi broke his right leg today when he was involved in a spectacular crash with Gil de Ferran on the second lap of the Australian IndyCarnival Indy-car race.

Fittipaldi was trapped inside his car after the accident in which he was clipped from behind by de Ferran. Medical and emergency officials removed Fittipaldi from the car after 10 minutes.

Officials ordered a restart because more than half the 28-car field had not completed the first lap. Scott Pruett then took advantage of a collision between Paul Tracy and Alex Zanardi to win the incident-marred race.