Hornish Edges Castroneves, Wins Another IRL Title

Sam Hornish Jr. won another close race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, and with it his second consecutive Indy Racing League season championship.

Hornish went side by side with Helio Castroneves for most of the final 25 laps Sunday in the season-ending Chevy 500, crossing the finish line .0096 of a second--only a few inches--ahead of the only other driver in contention for the title.

Hornish and Castroneves traded the lead six times over the final 35 laps. But they stayed beside each other, almost touching several times, before the second-closest finish in IRL history.

Hornish won his IRL-record fifth race of the season, and the 23-year-old Penzoil Panther racer became the first driver on the circuit to win two IRL championships.

Before Hornish won the season finale last year, he already had the season title in hand. This year, he came into the last race with only a 12-point lead over Castroneves.

Hornish overtook Castroneves for the points lead when he beat Al Unser Jr. by .0024 of a second--the closest IRL finish in history--last week in the Delphi Indy 300 at Joliet, Ill. He finished with 531 points, 20 ahead of Castroneves.

Had Castroneves been able to overtake Hornish at the finish, the two would have been tied for the season title. But Hornish would have been declared the champion because he would have still had one more win than Castroneves.

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Rookie Ryan Newman raced to his first NASCAR Winston Cup victory, barely holding off Kurt Busch in the rain-shortened New Hampshire 300 at Loudon.

Newman, 24, has eight top-five finishes in his last 10 starts and a series-leading 13 in 27 races. He had five second-place finishes before winning in his 35th race.

It was the first points-paying victory for the former USAC open-wheel champion. In May he won the Winston, NASCAR’s all-star race.

Sterling Marlin finished 21st and lost the points lead for the first time since the second race of the season. Mark Martin, who finished 16th, leads Marlin by six points.

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Rubens Barrichello and teammate Michael Schumacher transformed the Formula One Italian Grand Prix at Monza into a showcase for Ferrari.

Barrichello led Schumacher across the finish line, giving Ferrari a 1-2 finish. Barrichello won his third race of the season and fourth of his career and Ferrari claimed its 13th victory in 15 races.

Barrichello, who led by 18 seconds with four laps remaining, beat Schumacher to the line by 0.255 of a second and finished in 1 hour 16 minutes 19.982 seconds. Eddie Irvine finished third in a Jaguar, 52.5 seconds behind Barrichello.

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Rain forced the postponement of the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Mohnton, Pa., with the final eliminations in top fuel, funny car and pro stock pushed back to today.... Rip Michels clinched the second title of his career at Irwindale Speedway by winning the 2002 Jani-King Super Late Model Series title Saturday night. Brandon Loverock finished second. Michels won the series over Loverock, 748 points to 668.... Mike Kirby won his fifth Sprint Car Racing Assn., event of the season Saturday night at Perris Auto Speedway, overtaking series point leader Richard Griffin with less than two laps left.

Golf

Dan Forsman eagled the 18th hole in the SEI Pennsylvania Classic at Paoli to win his first PGA Tour victory in a decade.

One day after his course-record-tying 64, Forsman made a 22-foot putt on the final hole to finish a bogey-free six-under-par 65 in the final round and 14-under for the tournament.

Forsman, who hadn’t won since the 1992 Buick Open, finished one stroke ahead of Robert Allenby and Billy Andrade, who led after the first three rounds.

Annika Sorenstam won her eighth LPGA Tour title of the year, closing with a four-under 68 to hold off Kate Golden by a stroke in the Safeway Classic at Portland, Ore.

She has 10 worldwide victories this year, winning three consecutive events entering the Solheim Cup matches between Europe and the United States this week in Minnesota. She won the Compaq Open in Sweden on Aug. 18 and returned to the tour last week to win the Williams Championship in Tulsa, Okla.

Sorenstam earned $150,000 for her 39th tour victory to break her own season tour record with $2,211,991 in 17 events. She set the record last year with $2,105,868 in 26 events.

Bruce Fleisher held off Hale Irwin, the leading money winner on the Senior PGA Tour, to end a 38-tournament winless streak, shooting a 67 to win the RJR Championship in record-setting fashion at Clemmons, N.C.

Fleisher also had rounds of 60 and 64 for a 19-under 191 to set the tour’s 54-hole record. Three players held the old mark of 193, last done in 1992 by Gibby Gilbert.

Fleisher earned $240,000 to move into third place on the money list behind Irwin and Bob Gilder with six events left.

Irwin had a 67 to finish at 14 under and five shots behind. Don Pooley came in third at 12 under after a final-round 68.

Tennis

Anna Smashnova dashed Anna Kournikova’s hopes of winning her first WTA singles title with a 6-2, 6-3 victory in the final of the Shanghai Open. The 21-year-old Russian has lost all four finals she has played in her career.

Kournikova, playing in her first singles final since 2000, was looking for her first singles title in 115 WTA tournaments.

Miscellany

A replay of the Oscar De La Hoya-Fernando Vargas title fight will be televised on HBO Saturday at 9:45 p.m. De La Hoya won on an 11th-round TKO Saturday night in Las Vegas.... Charles Dionne of Canada outsprinted a group of six other cyclists, including Lance Armstrong, in the final yards to win the San Francisco Cycling Grand Prix. Dionne covered the 109-mile race in 4 hours 18 minutes 49 seconds. Armstrong finished sixth and was credited with the same time as Dionne.