Goodyear Is the Lone Star of IRL Race

Scott Goodyear outlasted several mid-race challenges by local favorite Greg Ray, then pulled away after a late caution to win the IRL’s Longhorn 500 Saturday night at Fort Worth.

It was a vindicating performance by Goodyear, who was 27th in the Indy 500.

Goodyear, who had an average speed of 151.177 mph, took the season points lead.

For Ray, a native of nearby Plano, it was another disappointing second at the Texas Motor Speedway. He finished to Billy Boat last year.

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Greg Pursley took the lead on the 13th lap and won the 50-lap NASCAR Super Late Model race before 3,821 at Irwindale Speedway.

Pursley, from Newhall, held off challenges from points leader Rod Johnson and David Gilliland. It is Pursley’s third official victory of the season. He has been disqualified in two other races that he has won.

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. passed Jeff Green with 70 laps to go and won the Textilease-Medique 300 at South Boston (Va.) Speedway, the defending series champion’s second consecutive victory in the NASCAR Busch Grand National series. . . . Michael Schumacher ended Mika Hakkinen’s streak of five consecutive poles in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix at Montreal. Hakkinen’s final lap came within .029 seconds of Schumacher’s Ferrari. . . . BMW and Toyota were fighting a stirring overnight battle in the Le Mans 24 Hour race after Mercedes pulled out. After nine hours, the BMW V12 driven by Tom Kristensen of Denmark, Jyrki Lehto of Finland and Jorg Muller of Germany held the lead with 139 laps. . . . Rookie David Keith took the lead with two laps remaining and went on to win the ARCA 200, the first pole-sitter to win the event at Michigan Speedway since 1980.