Justin Labonte gets first Busch Series victory

When Justin Labonte rumbled off on his victory lap, waving the checkered flag from his window, it was hard to tell who was prouder — father or son.

Labonte extended his family’s winning tradition to another generation, earning his first NASCAR Busch series victory at the Tropicana Twister 300 as his father Terry looked on, at Joliet, Ill.

“To me, personally, it was bigger than any win I’ve ever had,” said Terry Labonte, a two-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion. “I couldn’t even talk after the race. It’s pretty special, it really is. I don’t know what else to say.”

Running on Mike Wallace’s bumper for the last three laps, Justin Labonte said he didn’t think he could catch Wallace. But Wallace ran out of gas after they took the white flag for the final lap, and Justin Labonte flew by him and cruised to the win.

He beat Jason Keller by 0.419 seconds. Jeff Burton was third.

“He didn’t have the fastest car, but something good happened to a good person and a good family, and that’s pretty cool to see,” Burton said. “He earned the race, nobody gave it to him. People will say he got lucky. They made the right call. They made the right calls to win the race.”

“I’m so proud of Justin,” Terry Labonte said. “It’s hard to describe the feelings, really.”

Hamilton wins truck race

Bobby Hamilton became the first three-time winner this season on the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, rallying to win the rain-delayed Built Ford Tough 225 at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Ky.

The 47-year-old Hamilton dominated most of the race, but still needed a dramatic rally on a restart following a caution with two laps to go. Hamilton dipped his Dodge inside Jack Sprague’s Chevrolet and held off Sprague by 0.179 seconds.

Sprague took the lead on a restart on lap 146 of the scheduled 150-lap race, but the race went back to caution on lap 149 when Rick Crawford’s truck spun into the infield. Series rules dictate that a race must finish with two green-flag laps, so the field ran under caution for three laps before green-flag racing resumed.

Hamilton lapped all but 16 of the 35 other drivers who started the race. The former Nextel Cup driver led for 133 of the race’s 153 laps and moved up a spot to second in the series point standings, six points behind Dennis Setzer.

Hamilton won in 1:52.20, averaging 122.587 mph. David Starr, who also briefly passed Hamilton on the lap 146 restart, finished third, with Matt Crafton and Chad Chaffin (who survived an early spinout) rounding out the top five.

The race started 55 minutes late because of rain that soaked the track less than 3 hours before the scheduled start time.

Raikkonen takes British GP pole

Kimi Raikkonen claimed his third career pole, and six-time Formula One champion Michael Schumacher turned in the fourth-fastest time in qualifying for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, England.

Raikkonen, of the resurgent McLaren Mercedes team, turned a fast lap of 1 minute, 18.233 seconds on the 3.195-mile Silverstone circuit for his first pole of the season. He last started from the top spot at the 2003 U.S. Grand Prix.

Ferrari’s Rubens Barrichello, the defending champion who started from the pole last year, was second in 1:18.305. Jenson Button qualified third in 1:18.580.