LOCAL
LOCAL
Lake Erie Speedway
NORTH EAST, Pa. -- Glenn Gault Jr. of Hubbard won the Nextel Cup Driver 125 on Sunday at Lake Erie Speedway.
Gault started the race in 14th and soon after claiming the lead, was spun out by the second-place car and found himself in 31st.
"Then we went back and won the thing," said Gault. "It was a pretty cool gig."
Gault won a race a week earlier with the same car.
"It's a pretty good hot rod," he said. "It really had everything. We put a lot of bite in the car and it's a pretty unstoppable machine."
The race featured several top drivers, including Terry Labonte, Jeff Green and David Stremme.
Ohio Red Bulls
YOUNGSTOWN -- Joe Caruso kicked a pair of field goals covering 30 and 28 yards and also added two extra points to lead the Ohio Red Bulls to a 20-8 win over the Beaver County Vipers in a United States Football Alliance game at South Field Saturday. Orson Penny and Dajuan Stubbs scored touchdowns for the Red Bulls (5-4). Penny scored on a 60-yard run in the second quarter after taking a lateral from Myzelle Arrington, who had intercepted a pass.
Stubbs caught a 48-yard scoring pass from Anthony Pegues in the third quarter.
The Vipers fell to 7-2.
Junior Olympic track
BALTIMORE, Md. -- Alex Rathburn, who will be a senior at Western Reserve in the fall, placed 11th in the discus with a throw of 121 feet, 6 inches in the discus and in the hammer throw she was fourth with a toss of 136-8 in the Junior Olympic Nationals.
Kyle Muir, an Ursuline graduate in the young men's division, placed ninth in the hammer throw with a toss (151).
Jeff Harper of Springfield, in the Midget Division, finished 20th in the shot put (33-1). He was 22nd in the discus (75-9).
Lauren Lotze of North Lima placed 30th in the javelin with a throw (84-111/4).
The four are members of the Austintown Community Track Club.
Sharon Speedway
HARTFORD, Ohio -- Points leader Jarod Larson got the win in the sprint car division as the Fantastic Five raced for the 11th time on Saturday at Sharon Speedway.
Other winners were Brian Swartzlander (modifieds), Alan Dellinger (E-modifieds), Dave McLaughlin (stock cars) and Dal Blaney (sprint cars).
Mercer Raceway
MERCER, Pa. -- Mark Murphy, making his sixth start of the season, earned an upset victory -- his first of the season -- in the sprint car division on Saturday at Mercer Raceway Park.
Also earning victories were Brad Rapp (modifieds), Terry Wheeler (stock cars), Paul Reiser (strictly stocks) and Bill Clepper (school buses).
NATION
Champ Car
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- On a testy track that forced drivers into numerous mistakes on Sunday, Sebastien Bourdais was just about perfect.
"It was a brilliant effort for the whole team," Bourdais said after racing away to his fifth victory of the season and second win in a row on the downtown street course at the San Jose Grand Prix.
The 27-year-old Frenchman, well on the way to what would be his third straight title in the Champ Car World Series, had not won since starting the season with four consecutive victories. But Bourdais' Newman/Haas Racing Lola was a dominating car this weekend, winning the pole and leading 69 of the 97 laps on Sunday on the way to the 21st victory of his four-year career.
"It wasn't that easy," Bourdais said. "I'm really, really happy for the team that we finally got another. And we did it on a very tough racetrack that was so easy to make a mistake on."
Paul Tracy took the lead from Bourdais at the start, but was placed back in second after officials determined he jumped the green flag. That put Bourdais back on top.
Those same officials, worried about the possibility of a big wreck in the first turn, had put extra space between the two-car rows for the start and ordered the drivers not to use their push-to-pass turbocharger boost buttons until after the first turn.
"P.T. was by me before we got to the starting line," Bourdais said. "I thought he was told to stay on my [rear] wing. But that didn't happen. I was really happy that race control put him back.
"Once we got into the lead, it didn't seem like anybody could really stay with me."
Rookie Dan Clarke did worry Bourdais for a while after he got up to second place on lap 31. But the Englishman stopped on track on lap 50 with what his team said was a broken gearbox.
Vindicator staff/wire reports