THE INSIDE TRACK : Newswire : Ray Fights Off Challengers to Win Colorado Indy 200

Greg Ray has found his favorite track.

Two months after holding off Sam Schmidt at Pikes Peak International Speedway at Fountain, Colo., he slammed the door on two equally determined pursuers at the same track Sunday.

Ray, the pole-sitter, won for the third time in four races, beating back challenges from Davey Hamilton and Mark Dismore down the stretch in the Colorado Indy 200.

Ray finished .445 seconds ahead of Hamilton and 2.166 seconds in front of Dismore, with Buddy Lazier placing fourth and Schmidt fifth.

“In the last few laps, it was deja vu all over again,” Ray said. “Davey and Mark were right behind me.”

With two laps remaining, Ray made a bold inside pass on Schmidt’s slower car to prevent Hamilton from closing the gap.

Ray gained 52 points to raise his total to 246 with two races remaining.

Scott Goodyear, who had multiple mechanical problems and finished 21st, earned nine points for a total of 202, second in the standings.

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David Coulthard won the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps by 10.469 seconds, and McLaren-Mercedes teammate Mika Hakkinen finished second to take a one-point edge in the point standings over Eddie Irvine, who was fourth.

Hakkinen, the defending Formula One champion, now has 60 points with Irvine at 59 and Coulthard at 46 with four races left.

Tennis

Magnus Norman defeated Alex Corretja, 7-6 (7-4), 4-6, 6-3, to win the Hamlet Cup at Commack, N.Y., and tie Pete Sampras for the ATP Tour lead with four tournament titles this year. The 23-year-old Swede earned $46,000 for his victory in the tuneup for the U.S. Open and boosted his total for the year to $425,685.

The match lasted 2 hours 43 minutes, the longest three-set final this season, and each player had four aces with Norman committing 60 unforced errors, 10 more than the Spaniard.

Sixth-seeded Marat Safin of Russia used a powerful service game to upset top-seeded Greg Rusedski of Great Britain, 6-4, 7-6 (13-11), and win the U.S. Pro Championships at Brookline, Mass. The victory was Safin’s first professional championship, while Rusedski, who has seven career titles, failed to earn his first in 1999.

Safin will play No. 1 Sampras in the opening round of the U.S. Open today.

Peter Graf, the 61-year-old father of retired tennis star Steffi Graf who was once jailed for tax evasion of some of his daughter’s earnings, has remarried to a family friend of 30 years, according to a German newspaper.

Miscellany

Only one-third of the black male basketball players who entered NCAA Division I colleges on scholarship in 1992 received degrees from their original schools, the lowest graduation rate in that category since freshman eligibility was tightened more than a decade ago.

Overall graduation rates, however, were roughly the same as those for athletes who started college in 1991. In many race and sex categories, the graduation rates of athletes were higher than those of the general student body, according to figures released by the NCAA.

The NCAA began tracking graduation rates in 1984, using a formula that counts all transfer students--even if they go elsewhere and graduate--against the rates of their original school. It allows six years to complete a degree program, so graduation rates for the 1993 freshman class will not be compiled and announced until next year.

Jenny Thompson won a gold in the 50 freestyle and was part of the gold medal-winning 400 medley relay team as the United States swim team won three golds to finish with the most points at the Pan Pacific Championships at Sydney, Australia.

The U.S. men’s 400 medley relay won the other gold on the meet’s final day, as the United States and Australia finished with 13 golds each at the same pool that will host the swimming at next year’s Summer Olympics.

The U.S. team finished with 35 medals, three more than Australia, to win on points, 391-372.

Cuba’s boxing establishment unleashed a blistering combination of accusations of chaos and corruption against the organizers and judges of the 1999 world amateur boxing championships at Houston.

Taking part in a live television panel watched by President Fidel Castro, Cuba’s top boxing officials, athletes and journalists accused the International Amateur Boxing Association of sanctioning refereeing decisions which the Cubans said robbed their boxers of a clutch of gold medals.

Police fired tear gas and beat Libyan fans with clubs at Amman, Jordan, after violence broke out with Libya on the verge of losing a soccer match to Iraq in the Arab Games.

About 45 people sustained minor injuries and were given first aid, according to Dr. Bassem Tamimi at Al Bashir Hospital, but none were hospitalized.

Former New York Jet defensive end Mark Gastineau, who has a long history of skirmishes with the law, was arrested at New York on charges of burning his girlfriend with a cigarette lighter.

Morten Olsen was named coach of Denmark’s soccer team, replacing Bo Johansson, who announced earlier this summer that he would quit next year.