Win caps wild ride
A.J. Allmendinger has been fired, engaged, hired and a winner – all in the span of nine days.
Allmendinger capped his crazy ride on Sunday with a victory in the Champ Car Grand Prix of Portland, his first series win.
Champ Car’s lone American driver beat former teammate Justin Wilson by 5.420 seconds on the road course at Portland International Raceway.
Allmendinger also spoiled Sebastien Bourdais’ bid for a fifth straight victory to open the season. The two-time defending series champion finished third in a race where the only caution was a restart after the drivers failed to line up correctly.
“I just can’t believe it,” said Allmendinger, crying as he hugged his father, Greg, in the pits.
“This is absolutely amazing. I still don’t really think I understand it,” he said later. “With about seven or eight laps to go, I started tearing up and I had to tell myself, ‘Stop being such a sissy and finish the race.’ “
Bruno Junqueira, who had the pole for the first time since he broke his back last year in the Indianapolis 500, surrendered the lead to Allmendinger on the first lap and finished fourth on the 1.964-mile course.
Allmendinger’s victory, in his debut for Forsythe Championship Racing, comes on the heels of a shakeup in Champ Car. Last week, he was fired by RuSport. Forsythe hired Allmendinger on Tuesday.
Allmendinger, who became engaged to fiancée Lynne Kushnirenko the weekend he was briefly unemployed, becomes the first American to win a Champ Car event since Ryan Hunter-Reay went wire-to-wire at Milwaukee in 2004.
“I would have never have dreamed this. My goal was to come here and learn at least half the guys’ names,” Allmendinger said.
It was the first time in Champ Car’s 32 years in Portland that every driver completed the race. The last time every driver finished in a series event was in Mexico City in 2004.
24 Hours of Le Mans
Audi won its sixth Le Mans (France) 24 Hour endurance race, yet the biggest surprise was which Audi driver failed to cross the finish line first.
Frank Biela and Marco Werner of Germany and Emanuele Pirro of Italy drove the Audi No. 8 to victory – a first for a diesel-powered car at Le Mans. It was a fourth Le Mans victory for Pirro and Biela, and a second for Werner.
Frenchmen Eric Hilary, Franck Montagny and Sebastien Loeb of Pescarolo Judd took second place, four laps back.
Record seven-time winner Tom Kristensen of Denmark, who had won the previous six races at Le Mans, finished 13 laps behind to take third in his Audi. His car started from the pole position.
NHRA
Top Fuel driver Rod Fuller ended Larry Dixon’s Father’s Day winning streak at five, beating him in the final of the K&N Filters NHRA Supernationals in Englishtown, N.J., with a quarter-mile run of 4.692 seconds at 314.24 mph.
Ron Capps won the Funny Car competition, Jason Line topped the Pro Stock field and Matt Smith took the Pro Stock Motorcycle title in the $1.8 million event.