Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 38

Sports D4 CALGARY HERALD Monday, September 4, 2000 MOLSON INDY VANCOUVER Two in a row for Tracy Canadian driver jumps back into CART title contention with victory m. ft STEVE MERTL The Canadian Press VANCOUVER Paul Tracy used a miscue by teammate Dario Franchitti to take the lead and a pre-race deal helped him hold on for the win at the nth Vancouver Molson Indy CART race Sunday. Franchitti, who had led from the pole, stalled his Team Kool Green car leaving his final pit stop, allowing Tracy, a Toronto native, to beat him out of the pit lane. The Scottish driver had the faster car but both drivers had agreed that whomever was leading after the last pit stop would stay out front. Tracy, whose third victory of the season and second straight vaulted him into second place in the CART standings behind Michael Andretti, still got on the radio to double check the deal was still on.

"I was giving him some pressure, just keeping him honest pushing him just a little bit, little bit," said Franchitti, who is still looking for his first win of the season. "A couple of times he was getting a bit hot but he knew I wasn't allowed to pass him. I don't know how much he trusted me." Tracy, who was sixth in the standings going into Sunday's race, was pleased with the victory but also disappointed for his teammate. "Dario was the measure of the field today," he said. "I don't think I would have been ablelo beat him outright." Mexico's Adrian Fernandez battled from 15th place to finish third and move past Penske's Gil de Ferran into third in the CART title hunt.

"Today we just did the same thing we always do, just be patient and let things settle," said the Patrick Racing driver. "When we needed to push we pushed." Tracy's win was an emotional one, the first for a Canadian at the Vancouver race, where hometown hero Greg Moore, killed in a crash last year, was honoured all week. The event is also under threat be- Paul Tracy leaves no doubts about his nationality as he hoists the Canadian Vancouver Sunday. Teammate and second-place finisher Dario Franchitti of cause building development is encroaching on the waterfront street circuit. Tracy turned several Alex Zanardi-style doughnuts, then jumped out of the cockpit to do a victory dance.

"The crowd is so enthusiastic here," he said. "For the last five laps I could see everybody just jumping up and down and waving flags." With five races left Tracy now has 120 points, six behind series leader Michael Andretti, who got a single point for 12th place after his Newman-Haas car ran out of gas with two laps left. "They found something wrong with the fuel tank, so that might have been the problem," said Andretti "The telemetry told us we had enough fuel to go the distance." Franchitti, the winner here in '98, led for more than half the race. But when a crash by Shinji Nakano brought out a yellow flag, Franchitti stalled after completing his pit stop, allowing Tracy to lunge out of his pit into first place. Franchitti said the problem was on the Honda engine's pit-speed governor, which didn't produce enough revs long day NASCAR SOUTHERN 500 Rain makes for a Brief From Herald News Services Sydor third overall LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND Alison Sydor of Victoria finished third overall in the women's World Cup cross-country mountain bike standings after the final race of the 2000 season Sunday.

Switzerland's Barbara Blatter, a three-time winner this season, was crowned overall champion followed by American Alison Dunlap and Sydor. Marga Fullana of Spain won Sunday's 36.1-kilometre race in two hours 10 minutes 26 seconds. Sydor finished 15th. Chrissy Redden of Campbellville, Ont, placed 17th Sunday and finished sixth overall in the standings. In the men's race Miguel Martinez of Spain was fourth Sunday and won the overall title.

Roland Green of Victoria was 23rd and ended up 10th overall Belgium's Filip Meirhaeghe won Sunday's race in a time of two hours 21 minutes. Tryouts scheduled The Calgary Selects basketball club will hold tryouts for boys and girls entering Grades 7 to 9 today Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. For more details, visit the website at www.calgaryselects.com or call (403)-247-7588. Lakers win title BURNABY, B.C. Stephen Evans scored four goals and the Burnaby Lakers captured their second Minto Cup Junior A lacrosse championship in three years with a 9-5 victory over the Orangeville Northmen.

Burnaby won the best-of-seven national crown 4-2. Kevin Hanson, Matt Brown, Jeff Hanson, Kerry Susheski and Milan Gajic also scored for Burnaby. Kevin Howard scored twice for Orangeville, while Chad Culp, Jon Harasym and Patrick Merrill added one each. Power outage HONG KONG World No.i and defending champion Peter Nicol of Scotland took advantage of an injured Jonathan Power of Toronto to win the $125,000 Cdn Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Squash Open Sunday. Nicol raced to a 15-11, 15-10, 15-6 vic tory in a mere 43 minutes to win his sixth successive title and defend his Hong Kong Open crown.

New leader TARRAGONA, SPAIN Abraham Olano wiped away a lead of one minutes nine seconds for Swiss rider Alex Zulle and took the lead in Spain's La Vuelta cycling tour after winning Sunday's ninth stage. Olano, riding for the ONCE team, raced away with the stage, a 37-kilometre time trial in and around this eastern town in a time of 45:02, over two minutes faster than Zulle. Zulle had gone into the stage with a 1:09 advantage over Olano in the overall standings. He now lies third place, 55 seconds back. Trio left off team NEW DELHI Three Indian cricketers, who have been questioned by federal investigators in a match-fixing scandal, have been dropped from the Indian squad, news reports said Sunday.

Former captains Mohammad Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja and off-spinner Nikhil Chopra were excluded from the Indian squad announced Saturday for the International Cricket Council Knockout Trophy one-day tournament in Nairobi in October. "Keeping in mind the present scenario, we could not consider them," The Indian Express newspaper quoted Chandu Borde, chairman of the selection committee, as saying. Lofton ties mark CLEVELAND Cleveland's Kenny Lofton scored a run in the first inning Sunday, tying a major league record by scoring for the 18th consecutive game. Lofton led off the inning with a single against Baltimore Orioles starter Jay Spurgeon, who was making just his second career start Lofton then stole second base and moved to third on Omar Vizquel's fly out With two out Jim Thome drove in Lofton with a single to right field. Lofton tied the record set by the New York Yankees' Red Rolfe in 1939.

Ted Kluszewski holds the NL record, scoring in 17 consecutive games for the 1954 Cincinnati Reds. Ticats add Word HAMILTON The Hamilton Tiger-Cats have signed defensive end Mark Word Word, 24, appeared in five games with the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs in 1999. The six-foot-four, 282-pound native of Miami will rrake his debut for the Ticats against the Argos today. IN Bobby Labonte endures wet weather for first win at Darlington -i, 1 it. i I 1 k- ji Kevin Frayer, Canadian Press flag after his win at the Molson Indy Scotland is at Tracy's left.

to break loose the car's hot, sticky tires. "The thing just stalled on us." A dismal weekend for the Player's Forsythe team ended badly on the fourth lap when Alex Tagliani of Lachenaie, tried to force his way past teammate Patrick Carpentier of Joliette, and pushed him into a tire barrier. The race drew 63,677 fans Sunday, about three thousand more than last year but well below the almost 71,000 who turned up in 1995. Three-day attendance was 155,937. on track to work overtime when John Fitz-patrick of Ayr, Ont, hit the wall and then proceeded to chase Dowler down on two wheels during the second of two 100-lap qualifying races on Friday night, causing considerable damage to Dowler's No.

35 Taurus. Fitzpatrick was parked for the weekend by CASCAR. "A real dog and pony show," noted Dowler. "I got run pretty hard by the No. 14 car.

He hit me wide opea It was embarrassing for him and we figure I lost about 12 points (with a seventh-place Friday finish) because of that nonsense." Carl Harr of St Albert, the West's other national title hope who entered the weekend fourth in national standings, was involved in a multi-car accident on the 49th lap, finishing 34th of 39 cars and slipping to fifth place overall While the Eastern drivers are through for the year, Harr leads the second-place Dowler by 18 points in CASCAR Western Super Series standings with two events left this season. Harr has 821 points and Dowler has 803 heading into the final two dates on the Western calendar the Race City 200 here Sept. 16, and the Sun Valley 150 at Vernon, B.C, Sept 23. Although he escaped injury this time, the crash Friday forced Labonte to a backup Pontiac, and he qualified 37th. "I didn't think we were going to win," he said.

"We had a fifth-place car." He didn't outrun anybody on the track, but the second of two very fast pit stops gave him the advantage he needed. On that stop, he moved from fifth to first, spending less than 16 seconds in his pit on lap 322. Rain and darkness ended the Labour Day weekend classic under caution six laps later. "I certainly think it shows the strength of our race team," said crew chief Jimmy Makar. "We had some obstacles thrown at us that were hard to overcome." Defending champion Jeff Burton, who won twice last year in rain-shortened events at Darlington, finished second in Ford Next was the Chevrolet of Dale Earnhardt.

Four-time winner Jeff Gordon was fourth in the race that lasted six hours 16 minutes. That included a rain delay of 2:07 right after the start The victory extended Labonte's lead in points over defending Winston Cup champion Dale Jarrett, who wound up fifth in his Ford. Paul lllmgsworth, Associated Press Hut Stricklen of Calera, Ala. skids in the fourth turn as Terry Labonte of Corpus Christi, Texas passes by during the Pepsi Southern 500 Sunday. CASCAR SUPER SERIES The Associated Press DARLINGTON, S.C.

Bobby Labonte cringed as the lightning crackled not far behind him and the rain came down in a torrent. "You think I should sit by the window?" he asked. With the luck he had Sunday, it figured he would be the last one to be struck. On the track, fate hit the others who had a chance to win the rain-shortened Southern 500. But the weekend began ominously for the Winston Cup points leader, who crashed in practice Friday.

He was the victim of a stuck throttle, the kind of mechanical failure believed responsible for the fatal crashes of NASCAR drivers Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin this summer at New Hampshire International Speedway. "It could have been a lot worse," said Labonte, who thought the high banking of Darlington Raceway reduced his speed, perhaps enabling him to walk away uninjured. "I said, 'Hey, I've got no broken shoulder I know how bad that is after last spring." Labonte broke his shoulder when he crashed at Darlington in March of 1999. Crash ends TODD KIMBERLEY Calgary Herald When the dust cleared not to mention the smoke, the fumes and plenty of debris Kevin Dowler's bid for a national stock car championship fell just short Sunday afternoon. A 300-lap wreckfest known as the CARQUEST 300 which closed out the four-event Canadian Association of Stock Car Auto Racing (CASCAR) Castrol National Super Series at London, Ont.

saw the top four contenders in the CASCAR national points chase, including Dowler, run into trouble. Dowler, the Sherwood Park- AlsoSee I Final standings D20 based driver of the No. 35 Ford Quality Care Taurus, was making a serious bid to become the first Western-based driver to win a CASCAR national crown. Dowler, winner of the Bumper to Bumper Classic 250km that kicked off the CASCAR national tour at the Edmonton city centre airport July 23, entered the weekend at Delaware Speedway Park's half-mile oval standing third in the points derby widi a to in a 34, bid for championship vG r' 1 Dowler's 1,279, only 38 back of leader and defending national champion Peter Gibbons of Stouffville, Ont. But Dowler saw his dream dissipate during a chain-reaction accident on a iooth-lap restart, when he ran into Neil Fair's No.

33 Chevrolet Monte Carlo after race leaders Don Thomson Jr. and Gibbons checked up on the backstretch. Dowler knocked the top of his radiator off in the accident, completed only 274 laps, and finished 23rd overall the race won by Al Turner of Bar-rie, Ont. That incident totalled Dowler's chances of moving up from third place. It proved even more frustrating when Thomson Jr.

of Hamilton, who would finish second in the points chase, lost 40 laps thanks to a burned-out bearing in his right front wheel and Gibbons, who secured his second straight CASCAR national title, broke timing chain on the 219th circuit. Still, Dowler's third-place national finish is still one of the West's best surpassed only Calgary's Wade Lee, who finished second overall in both 1996 and '97. "Kind of bittersweet," noted Dowler, who finished seventh in the national series second event, the Mopar Kevin Dowler Parts 300, at Race City Motorsport Park July 3a "It's too bad that (accident) happened, because we had a great race car. "We had the fastest lap of the race. All day long, we were running as quick as the leaders.

But Pm really proud of my crew, and overall I'm happy. We did CASCAR West proud." Dowler's pit crew had been forced i.