Motorsports

Bourdais continues to rule Champ Car

By TIMES WIRES
Published May 22, 2006

MONTERREY, Mexico - Sebastien Bourdais is still the only driver to win in Champ Car this season.

The Frenchman, 27, is 3-for-3 after overcoming a slow early pit stop Sunday to edge Justin Wilson by 3.065 seconds in Mexico's Grand Prix of Monterrey.

Bourdais and Wilson went at each other all afternoon over 76 laps on the 2.104-mile Parque Fundidora road course.

"I think we really gave each other a run for our money," said Bourdais, a St. Petersburg resident. "Nobody could lay back or anything. It was running flat out the whole time."

The temperature was 97 degrees at the start and climbed to 125 on the track. Wilson went to the medical tent after the race, suffering from mild dehydration.

A.J. Allmendinger, Wilson's RuSport teammate, was third, 14.132 seconds off the lead.

Bourdais, the two-time defending series champion, started first after becoming the first driver since Rick Mears from 1988 to 1991 to win four straight poles at the same event.

Rookie Katherine Legge, the first woman to run full time in Champ Car, finished 15th.

Hornish okay after

crashing backup car

Pole-sitter Sam Hornish had a bit of a scare on a relatively uneventful bump day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

On the day the 33-car field was set for May 28 Indianapolis 500, Hornish was practicing in his backup car when he skidded and hit a SAFER barrier. Hornish was not injured, and the car he qualified Saturday with a four-lap average of 228.985 mph was sitting safely in the Team Penske garage.

In qualifying, Thiago Medeiros filled the lone opening in the 33-car field at 215.729 mph, slowest of all the qualifiers. That placed him on the bubble, but he was never challenged. Marty Roth ran 33 practice laps and never made a qualifying attempt; he hit the wall in practice with about 25 minutes left. Ryan Briscoe, last year's 10th-place finisher, had a physical but never made it onto the track.

NHRA: Brandon Bernstein improved to 10-1 in Top Fuel finals, beating Cory McClenathan with a quarter-mile run of 4.531 seconds at 329.58 mph in the Pontiac Performance NHRA Nationals in Kirkersville, Ohio. In other divisions, Tony Pedregon won in Funny Car, Jim Yates topped Pro Stock and Angelle Sampey won Pro Stock Motorcycle.

AMERICAN LE MANS SERIES: Penske Racing's Porsche RS Spyders finished 1-2 overall in Lexington, Ohio, to become the first LMP2 class team to accomplish the feat in series history. Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard won, with Dumas and Lucas Luhr second.

ATLANTIC SERIES: Graham Rahal, the 17-year-old son of former Indianapolis 500 and Indy Car champion Bobby Rahal, led wire-to-wire to win in the Champ Car developmental series in Monterrey, Mexico. Rahal is the youngest winner in the series' 33 seasons.

[Last modified May 22, 2006, 01:05:14]