Auto Racing Roundup : Michael Andretti Is Winner in Backup Car

Michael Andretti crashed Saturday in practice but didn’t have to pick up the pieces Sunday.

Andretti simply climbed into a backup car and ran away with the Bosch Grand Prix Indy-car race near his home in Nazareth, Pa.

“It wasn’t a great weekend, but it was a perfect day,” Andretti said after his victory at Pennsylvania International Raceway.

Andretti, 24, kept alive his hopes of catching Bobby Rahal for the Indy-car championship.

Andretti, who won the rain-delayed qualifying earlier Sunday for his second pole position start of the season, led the final 128 laps of the 200-lap event.

“After the first pit stop, we had it covered,” Andretti said. “We had a fantastic stop. We didn’t change tires. The car was on rails.”

Andretti was more than a lap ahead of the second-place Rahal when the race finished under a caution flag.

Rahal, the defending series champion, started the race with a 31-point lead and came away leading Andretti, 162-137, with two races remaining.

Ricky Rudd won the NASCAR Winston Cup Delaware 500 stock car race for the second straight year at Dover, Del.

The victory marked Rudd’s eighth Winston Cup victory, and he made $54,550 out of a $426,000 purse. He set a Dover Downs record with an average speed of 124.706 m.p.h. on the one-mile oval.

Rudd had a two-second margin of victory over runner-up Davey Allison. Neil Bonnett was third.

Dale Earnhardt, who was running strong with the top five, blew his engine and was forced to drop out of the race on lap 304, marking the first time he hasn’t finished a race this season.

Alain Prost of France scored a record 28th Formula One victory, capitalizing on a spin by Gerhard Berger two laps from the finish to win the Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril, Portugal.

Prost and Berger waged a battle over the final 35 laps, before the Austrian spun on the 68th of 70 laps while leading by 2.4 seconds, and Prost went past. Berger wound up second, 20.493 seconds behind Prost.

Prost broke a tie with Scotland’s Jackie Stewart for the most victories in Grand Prix history.

Nelson Piquet of Brazil finished third, widening his lead in the drivers’ standings. He has 67 points, while Ayrton Senna of Brazil, who finished seventh, is second with 49.