MOTOR SPORTS : WALLACE OWNS VIRGINIA TRACK.

Byline: Associated Press 

The key moment in Sunday's Goody's Headache Powders 500 in Martinsville, Va., began innocently enough.

A piece of metal debris laying in turn 4 on Martinsville Speedway's .526-mile oval brought out the last of six caution flags, 58 laps from the end of the 500-lap event.

The field slowed and the leaders prepared to make one last pit stop for fresh tires.

Jeff Gordon, leading the race, drove off turn 4 and turned in toward the pit lane. Second-place Dale Earnhardt did the same, then suddenly veered back onto the track.

Eventual winner Rusty Wallace followed Gordon to the pits, while Ernie Irvan and Jeremy Mayfield stayed behind Earnhardt.

``I still can't believe the 28 (Irvan) and 3 (Earnhardt) didn't come in,'' said Wallace, whose last set of tires was good enough to carry him to his record-setting fourth straight victory in Martinsville's spring race.

The win by Wallace overshadowed Terry Labonte's record-breaking day.

Labonte, breaking a tie he forged a week earlier with longtime stock car king Richard Petty, drove in his 514th consecutive Winston Cup event, a streak dating to the opening race of the 1979 season.

Although he led as late as lap 414, Labonte had to make a series of pit stops because of a brake fluid leak, and wound up 24th, 20 laps off the pace.

Wallace, NASCAR's leading driver on track's shorter than one mile, came back from a mid-race problem of his own and chased down defending Winston Cup champion Gordon.

Wallace passed Gordon with 12 laps to go and raced to his 42nd career victory, sixth at Martinsville and first this season.

``I figured, with the tire change, there was no way I was going to catch Gordon,'' Wallace said. ``But he just kept coming back to me. Robin (crew chief Robin Pemberton) said, `You can get him.' I just kept digging and digging and digging and finally, with about 20 laps to go, I got all over his rear end and we had to slow down because of some traffic and I was able to get around him, and that was it.''

Wallace had to make an extra pit stop during a mid-race caution period because of a broken lug nut, and fell from second to seventh. He stayed on the lead lap but didn't get back into contention until after the last tire change.

It was an unusually clean race for a short track event, with only six caution flags for 36 laps. Three of those yellow flags came out in the first 95 laps.

Michner zooms: Andy Michner of Grass Lake, Mich., won the fastest USAC Sprint car feature race in history at Phoenix International Raceway, averaging 134.014 mph in the 25-mile Desert Star Classic, round 3 of the 1996 Stoops Freightliner/USAC National Sprint car campaign.

Michner started second alongside David Steele of Tampa, Fla., who qualified at a non-winged Sprint car record of 137.509 mph. on Saturday to win the pole for Sunday's feature.

Sprague holds on: Jack Sprague shook off a case of the flu and the late charge of pole starter Mike Skinner to score a one-second victory in $261,875 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Chevrolet Desert Star Classic 300 at Phoenix International Raceway.