Kenseth finishes strong

Matt Kenseth caught Roush Racing teammate Jamie McMurray with three laps left and pulled away to win yesterday at Dover International Speedway in Delaware.

McMurray seemed poised to win for the second time in his NASCAR Nextel Cup career after taking the lead with 98 laps left in the Neighborhood Excellence 400. He held the lead for the next 95 laps, but Kenseth's No. 17 Ford started nipping at McMurray with about 30 laps left in the caution-marred race.

With three laps to go, Kenseth passed McMurray after the leader was slowed a bit by Michael Waltrip's lapped car. With one lap to go, Kenseth pulled away for his second win of the season and 12th of his career.

``It was really exciting," Kenseth said. ``I feel bad for Jamie."

Kevin Harvick finished third, followed by Jeff Burton and Kyle Busch. Jimmie Johnson maintained the points lead, finishing sixth after starting a season-worst 42d.

Injured defending champ Tony Stewart completed 38 laps before Ricky Rudd replaced him. Stewart drove with a broken shoulder blade suffered last week at Charlotte, and had trouble lifting his right arm before he was eased into his car. Rudd came out of a self-imposed, one-year break to race for the first time this season in the Nextel Cup series. He finished 25th, two laps off the lead.

IRL -- Scott Dixon won a slippery battle of attrition at New York's Watkins Glen International, holding off Vitor Meira and Ryan Briscoe in a one-lap shootout to capture the Indy Grand Prix for the second straight year.

The ugly, ever-changing weather -- showers came and went and temperatures were in the 50s -- made the fifth race of the 14-race IRL season a guessing game right from the start. Drivers switched back and forth from slicks to rain tires and endured multiple yellow flags as cars repeatedly spun.

At the end, the top four cars were on slicks as rain again began to fall, and Buddy Rice led a group with rain tires trying in vain to run down the leader. But Dixon's slicks held on, and he led the last eight laps, winning for the fifth time in the IRL.

Indy 500 runner-up Marco Andretti was charging hard and running third when he attempted to pass Eddie Cheever on Lap 38. But as he swung around the much slower car, Cheever drove into Andretti's left side, slamming him into the guard rail.

Andretti raised his fist in anger after climbing from the cockpit. ``If he didn't know I was there, come on, that's a little scary. You're in the wrong business," said Andretti.

Champ -- Sebastien Bourdais ended his run of hard luck at the Milwaukee Mile, winning for the fourth time this year with an overpowering victory that left him unbeaten in the circuit's 2006 World Series.

He struggled to a ninth-place finish at this site as a rookie, crashed in testing and again early in the 2004 race, and was sixth last year after being penalized for speeding on pit road.

The Time Warner Cable Road Runner 225 was shortened to 197 laps because of a 1-hour-45-minute time limit.

Rookie Katherine Legge, the only woman in the series, became the first female to lead a Champ Car race, leading for 12 laps.

She finished sixth.