Bodine Laps Field in Easy Victory

Geoff Bodine lapped the field Sunday on the way to victory in the Tyson-Holly Farms 400 at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway.

Bodine earned his third victory of the season and the 17th of his NASCAR Winston Cup career. He led 335 of the 400 laps on the five-eighth-mile oval, including the last 301.

It is the first time a driver has won by more than a lap since Harry Gant’s dominating victory in September of 1991 at Dover, Del.

“It’s a great team,” Bodine said. “The car was about as fast as I needed it to go all day. The setup was perfect, and that’s what you need on these short tracks.”

Terry Labonte, who won the April race at North Wilkesboro, finished second Sunday. He passed Bodine’s Ford Thunderbird to regain his lost lap on lap 366, but fell back again as Bodine shot past on lap 382.

“We just got outrun,” Labonte said. “Our car was really good on longer runs, but I guess the No. 7 (Bodine) was too.”

In the Winston Cup championship race, Rusty Wallace never was able to make up for an unscheduled tire stop that put his pit stops out of sequence early in the race. He wound up behind third-place Rick Mast at the end, and a late-race incident cost Dale Earnhardt some valuable ground as he slipped to seventh, two laps behind the winner.

Earnhardt, who led early in the 400-lap race, got the five-point bonus for leading at least one lap and lost only nine points to Wallace, who now trails by 208 with four races remaining.

*

Cory McClenathan of Placentia edged Don Prudhomme of Granada Hills in the top fuel final of the NHRA Sears Craftsman Nationals at Topeka, Kan. McClenathan used a run of 4.791 seconds and 302.82 m.p.h. to beat Prudhomme’s 4.793, 280.02, and earn his second victory of the season.

Cruz Pedregon of Moorpark surprised John Force in the funny car final. Pedregon secured the victory in an Oldsmobile Cutlass when Force’s Chevrolet Lumina broke at half-track.

Despite the loss, it was a productive weekend for Force, who clinched his fourth NHRA funny car championship and earned a $50,000 bonus for setting an NHRA elapsed-time national record of 4.939.

Scott Geoffrion of Aliso Viejo, Calif., earned his fifth pro stock victory of the season by defeating his Dodge teammate Darrell Alderman in the final. David Schultz of Fort Myers, Fla., got his ninth pro stock motorcycle victory of the season by beating John Smith in the final. Schultz finished at 7.762 seconds and 173.57 m.p.h. on a Suzuki GSXR; Smith 7.796, 174.96 on a Suzuki GSXR.

College Football

Top-ranked Florida pulled away from No. 2 Nebraska, and Utah moved into the rankings at No. 25 for the first time in 47 years in the Associated Press poll.

Florida, which led Nebraska by 16 points last week, increased the margin to 72 after the Gators defeated Mississippi, 38-14, and the Cornhuskers struggled to beat Wyoming, 42-32, without ailing quarterback Tommie Frazier.

Utah (4-0) was idle Saturday. The Utes have been ranked only one other time since the AP poll began in 1936. They were No. 18 for one week in 1947 after starting the season 7-0.

Baseball

Buck Rodgers, who was fired May 17 by the Angels, will interview today for the Baltimore Oriole managerial vacancy.

Rodgers becomes the sixth candidate to interview for the position, joining Davey Lopes, Rick Dempsey, Bill Virdon, Phil Regan and Elrod Hendricks.

In other news, the Colorado Rockies expect batting instructor Rod Carew to announce this week that he is returning to the Angels rather than joining the Rockies.

Tennis

Fourth-seeded Wayne Ferreira of South Africa had 38 aces and defeated wild-card Patrick McEnroe, 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (9-7), 6-3, to win the $800,000 Swiss Indoors at Basel. . . . Top-seeded Alberto Berasategui, who lost to countryman Sergi Bruguera in the French Open, won the Sicilian Open at Palermo by beating fellow Spaniard Alex Corretja, 2-6, 7-6, (8-6), 6-4. . . . Jacco Eltingh of the Netherlands defeated Russian Andrei Olhovskiy, 7-6 (7-1), 2-6, 6-4, to win the Salem Open at Kuala Lumpur. . . . Second-seeded Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic defeated top-seeded Mary Pierce of France, 7-5, 6-1, to win the $400,000 Volkswagen Grand Prix event at Leipzig, Germany.

Miscellany

The chief of Nepal’s delegation to the Asian Games died shortly after the Games’ opening ceremonies Sunday at Hiroshima, Japan, organizers said. Naresh Kumar Adhikari, 46, was taken from the athletes’ village to a nearby hospital after suffering breathing difficulties. The cause of death was unknown.

Second-seeded Barbra Fontana and Lori Kotas-Forsythe defeated third-seeded Gail Castro and Elaine Roque, 15-2, to win the Reebok Best of the Beach volleyball tournament in Las Vegas.

Benson Masya outkicked fellow Kenyan William Musyoki by two seconds to win the men’s 30-kilometer race in the Lidingoloppet, the world’s biggest cross-country meet, at Stockholm.