Ward Burton Gets His Win

It seems there’s no beating the Burtons these days at Darlington Raceway. Ward Burton, following up brother Jeff’s sweep a year ago, cruised to victory Sunday in the Mall.com 400 at Darlington, N.C.

Ward Burton, who qualified second behind Jeff Gordon, took the lead from Matt Kenseth with 36 laps to go and hardly was pressured the rest of the way. It was only his second NASCAR Winston Cup victory, the other coming at Rockingham, N.C., in 1995.

In between, Burton lived every older brother’s nightmare--watching Jeff’s Roush Racing team rise to the top of the sport. Three times last season, including the Southern 500 at Darlington, Ward finished second behind Jeff.

“You got a younger brother?” the 38-year-old Ward asked rhetorically this past September about his 32-year-old brother’s success. “Then you know how it feels.”

It was the first time a Pontiac won at Darlington since Joe Weatherly took the Rebel 300 in 1963 and only the third time in 94 races that the manufacturer can claim a Darlington victory.

Ward finished 1.4 seconds ahead of Dale Jarrett. Dale Earnhardt, who won last week in Hampton, Ga., was third in a Chevrolet. Tony Stewart finished fourth in a Pontiac, just ahead of Jeff.

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Buddy Lazier went from last to first--the first time it has been done in the four-year-old Indy Racing League--to win the MCI WorldCom Indy 200 at Phoenix International Raceway.

It was the 1996 Indianapolis 500 champion’s first IRL victory in three years. Lazier started 26th, and took 150 laps to reach first.

He lost the lead to Robbie Buhl on the 156th lap, but regained it on the 161st and held off defending champion Scott Goodyear.

Despite seven caution flags, Lazier averaged 111.957 mph--the fastest of four races in Phoenix since the IRL banished turbochargers after its split with CART.

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Tim Herbst drove a Ford F-150 truck to a first place overall finish late Saturday in the 14th SCORE San Felipe 250 off-road race. Herbst, 36, drove the 208.8-mile course in three hours 39 minutes 16 seconds, averaging 57.1 mph. His younger brother, Troy, 33, finished second overall and first in the unlimited Class I division in a Ford Smithbuilt open wheel car

Alpine Skiing

Kjetil Andre Aamodt of Norway, skiing with a fractured back that could have paralyzed him, won the World Cup slalom title at Bormio, Italy.

Spela Pretnar won the women’s slalom title, giving Slovenia its first title since gaining independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Kristina Koznick of Burnsville, Minn., won the race in 1 minute 52.49 seconds for her second consecutive victory. She won last week’s slalom in Sestriere, Italy.

Christian Ole Furuseth of Norway won the race for his first victory of the season. He was timed in 1 minute 52.49 seconds, ahead of Austrian Benjamin Raich. Aamodt’s biggest rival, Matjaz Vrhovnik of Slovenia, had an excellent second run and finished third. Aamodt finished sixth.

Pretnar won the title with a ninth-place finish. She defeated her primary rival, Christel Saioni of France, by 19 points. Saioni finished fifth, but it wasn’t enough because Pretnar had a 35-point lead going into the race. Anja Paerson of Sweden was second in 1:26.36.

Miscellany

Denise DeBartolo York is the new owner of the San Francisco 49ers, ending a sibling rivalry and completely severing ties between her brother, Eddie DeBartolo, and the team he ran for 20 years.

DeBartolo and his sister signed a deal in Nashville on Saturday, making final their plans to go their separate financial ways.

DeBartolo stepped away from the team and left his seat on the Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. board in December 1997 after he became ensnared in a Louisiana gambling fraud probe. His sister assumed management of the club at that time.

They filed lawsuits against each other before reaching a settlement under which DeBartolo gave up his ownership stake, leaving the team in the hands of his sister and her husband, John York, who has served as the club’s chief executive for the last year.

Neil Walker of Verona, Wis., Lars Frolander of Sweden and Roman Sloudnov of Russia set world records at the World Short Course swimming championships at Athens, Greece.

Walker’s 50.75-second clocking took nearly one second off the 100-meter backstroke record, breaking the mark of 51.28 set last month in Berlin by American Lenny Krayzelburg. Walker also set records in the 50 backstroke, the 100 individual medley, and as part of the U.S. 800 freestyle relay team.

Frolander’s time of 23.19 in qualifying for the 50 butterfly lowered the 23.21 held by Australia’s Michael Klim since September. In the 200 breaststroke, Sloudnov set a record with a time of 2 minutes 7.59 seconds, breaking the mark set seven years ago by Russian Andrei Korneev.

The heavyweight bout between Lennox Lewis and Michael Grant April 29 at Madison Square Garden will be sanctioned by the WBA as a championship bout if they agree to make a mandatory defense within six months.

WBA lawyer James Binns told the Associated Press from Philadelphia that Panos Eliades, Lewis’ promoter, has agreed to the ruling.

The Lewis-Grant winner must next fight the highest-ranked available contender. John Ruiz is ranked No. 1 by the WBA, followed by Evander Holyfield, who lost the WBA and IBF titles to Lewis, who also holds the WBC title.

Hall of Fame football coach Bob Blackman, who won or shared seven Ivy League titles at Dartmouth, has died at the age of 81. Blackman died Friday at Mills-Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame, Calif., from a systemic infection.

In 16 seasons at Dartmouth from 1955-70, Blackman was 104-37-3. His teams went unbeaten three times. Blackman also coached at Illinois and Cornell.

Savannah State of Georgia set an NCAA baseball record with 35 consecutive wins when it swept a doubleheader from Maryland Eastern Shore, 5-0 and 24-2. The Tigers tied the record of 34, set by Texas in 1977, when Ricardo Castillo pitched a seven-inning, one-hitter.