Ted Musgrave

Bobby Hamilton overpowered the track and the rest of the 43-car field yesterday to win the rain-delayed Goody's 500 at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. Ted Musgrave finished as the runner-up and has yet to gain a Winston Cup victory after 223 starts. He now has four second-place finishes. Hamilton led eight times for 378 of the 500 laps on the .526-mile oval - the shortest track on NASCAR's Winston Cup circuit. He avoided trouble despite close-quarters racing that produced 14 caution flags for a total of 96 laps.

Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard finished 1-2 in the Australian Grand Prix today in a dominating effort by McLaren 9 in the season's first Formula One race. Hakkinen took the lead with two laps remaining in the 56-lap event on the 3.274-mile Albert Park track. So completely did the McLaren cars dominate that they left third-place Heniz-Harald Frentzen's Williams car more than a lap behind. Defending Formula One champion Jacques Villeneuve was fifth in the second Williams.

Anyone needing a driver to get through rush-hour traffic should hire Jeff Gordon. He'll get you there, probably ahead of schedule, without spilling your coffee or damaging the car. Overcoming an early tire problem, Gordon won yesterday's Pocono 500 by 1.4 seconds over Jeff Burton in front of a divided crowd of more than 100,000. Gordon wins enough to send his many fans home happy. For fans of other drivers, however, he wins too often. The victory was Gordon's sixth in 13 races this season.

As overpowering as Dale Jarrett's victory in the TranSouth Financial 400 appeared, NASCAR's hottest driver thought it was going to slip away again yesterday. Jarrett, with a point to make after letting both Winston Cup races slip from his grasp last year at Darlington (S.C.) International Raceway, hung on this time, fighting off a strong challenge from runner-up Ted Musgrave. The winner led the last 129 of 293 laps on the 1.366-mile oval, beating Musgrave by less than 2 car lengths in the battle of Ford Thunderbirds.

Dale Jarrett never will be accused of wasting fuel. In fact, he proved he's good to the last drop. Jarrett was virtually running on fumes as he held off a late charge by Jeff Gordon to post a dramatic win yesterday at the Miller Genuine Draft NASCAR 500 at Pocono International Raceway. It was the first victory in 19 races - including 16 this season - for the veteran driver from Conover, N.C. Jarrett last saw the checkered flag at Charlotte last October. Yesterday, his Texaco/ Havoline Thunderbird was pushed around the track by fellow driver Michael Waltrip during the traditional victory lap. "I thought I was out (of fuel)

Winning isn't everything. So says Sterling Marlin, one of the top drivers on the NASCAR circuit this year. Don't get him wrong, Marlin likes to visit Victory Lane as much as the next guy, and he will be looking to post his first-ever win at Pocono International Raceway when he competes in Sunday's Miller Genuine Draft 500 (TBS, 1 p.m.). However, he knows that when it comes to accumulating coveted Winston Cup points, finishing among the leaders in a race is the next best thing to a victory.

It wasn't too long ago that Terry Labonte made the most of a come-from- behind situation at Pocono International Raceway. The year was 1989, and Labonte's 23rd starting position didn't present the ideal situation to take home the green flag. However, no one ever said NASCAR racing was predictable. Victory was ever so sweet, marking the best come-from- behind triumph in the 21-year history of the Pocono track. Earlier this year, Labonte held to a similiar script. Heading into Pocono this weekend, his only victory came from a 24th starting grid at Richmond in March.

Talk about a sports specialist: Sterling Marlin only wins the Daytona 500. At Daytona, Marlin is as good as gold, which happens to be the color of his race car. Beginning his 17th year in Winston Cup racing last year at Daytona, Marlin finally won a race. The big race. Only two other drivers, Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough, had won consecutive Daytona 500s. But yesterday Marlin expanded it to an exclusive three-man club with his second visit to victory lane in a NASCAR Winston Cup event.

Rusty Wallace rallied after his Ford ran out of gas and the engine cut off, charging back to win the Miller Genuine Draft 400 yesterday at Michigan International Speedway. Wallace dropped from first place to 11th in the NASCAR Winston Cup race when his Penske South team had to push his car to get the engine to catch. That came when all the front-runners pitted on the 176th of 200 laps during the last of seven caution periods. Wallace, maneuvering spectacularly through traffic on the 2-mile track after the restart on Lap 182, steadily picked off the cars ahead of him. The decisive pass before a cheering crowd estimated at 120,000 came on Lap 197, when Wallace whipped inside of leader Dale Earnhardt's Chevrolet going through treacherous Turn 3, a trouble spot of slick pavement that victimized 11 drivers.