YEAR IN REVIEW 1996: SPORTS-AND-GAMES: AUTOMOBILE RACING

AUTOMOBILE RACING: U.S. Racing. Two Canadians, Jacques Villeneuve (see BIOGRAPHIES) and Scott Goodyear, figured in another astonishing finish at the 1995 Indianapolis 500. Goodyear, in a Reynard-Honda, was in the lead when he passed the Chevrolet Corvette pace car illegally just after the 190th lap of the 200-lap race; officials stopped scoring his laps on the 196th, and Goodyear finished 14th. Ironically, Villeneuve earlier in the race had been penalized two laps for the same infraction but had battled back into contention. Driving a Reynard-Ford, he averaged 247.221 km/h (153.616 mph) to beat Christian Fittipaldi of Brazil by 2.481 sec and win $1,312,019 of the $8,063,550 purse. The race was unusual because neither defending champion Al Unser, Jr., nor 1993 winner Emerson Fittipaldi (Christian's uncle) qualified for the final. Villeneuve also won the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) IndyCar PPG World Series season championship over Unser, with Bobby Rahal third and Michael Andretti fourth. Unser could not overcome Villeneuve's early lead and also was disqualified after apparently winning at Portland, Ore. The other Indianapolis classic, the Brickyard 400 of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), contested in U.S. stock cars, paid a $4,447,015 purse. Defending Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt, in his black Goodwrench Chevrolet Monte Carlo, won over four Ford Thunderbirds led by Rusty Wallace. The average speed was 249.780 km/h (155.206 mph), and the margin of victory was only 0.37 sec. Despite this and four other NASCAR victories, Earnhardt lost his Winston Cup crown to Jeff Gordon, who clinched it in the last race by 34 points, 4,614-4,580. And, for the 11th time in a row, Earnhardt failed to win NASCAR's most prestigious race, the Daytona 500, finishing second to defending champion Sterling Marlin by 0.67 sec. Gordon won 7 of the 31 races in the Winston Cup series, becoming the first NASCAR driver to earn $4 million ($4,347,343) in a single season. NASCAR during the year began a new SuperTruck series for race trucks on small tracks. Chevrolet dominated this competition easily, just as it had in winning the Winston Cup national manufacturers' crown. The trucks basically had Winston Cup engines in full-size pickup bodies. Mike Skinner was crowned champion. In the Sports Car Club of America's Trans-Am, the oldest continuous racing series in the U.S., Tom Kendall, driving a Roush Mustang, won the title by 24 points, 305-281, despite a late charge by Ron Fellows of Canada. In the International Race of Champions, Unser edged NASCAR's Mark Martin for the title, contested in identically prepared Dodge Avengers. (ROBERT J. FENDELL) BADMINTON China defeated Indonesia 3-1 in the world mixed team championships at Lausanne, Switz., May 17-21, 1995, and thereby took home its first Sudirman Cup. China's victory emphasized its reemergence as a world power in badminton. The women's doubles pair of Ge Fei and Gu Jun started the barrage for China by defeating Indonesia's Elisa and Rosiana Zelin 15-9, 15-10. Indonesia's Olympic and world champion, Susi Susanti, failed to live up to expectations, being crushed by China's Ye Zhaoying 11-2, 11-3 in a match that took only 20 minutes and gave China a crucial 2-0 lead. All hope for victory was lost for Indonesia following the men's singles competition, in which China's Sun Jun defeated Heryanto Arbi 15-7, 9-15, 15-11. Indonesia's top-ranked men's doubles team of Ricky Subagja and Rexy Mainaky then prevented a shutout by defeating China's Jiang Xin and Huang Zhanzhong 11-15, 15-11, 15-6. The final mixed doubles match was not contested. Held in conjunction with the Sudirman Cup in Lausanne were the world championships. In the men's singles Arbi avenged his loss in the Sudirman Cup by defeating South Korea's Park Sung Woo 15-11, 15-8 to take the title. In women's singles Ye Zhaoying again easily defeated Susanti 5-11, 11-8, 11-2 in the semifinals and then went on to defeat Han Jingna of China 11-7, 11-10 in the final. Subagja and Mainaky again demonstrated that they were the best men's doubles pair in the world, defeating Jon Holst-Christensen and Thomas Lund of Denmark 15-5, 15-2. Gil Young Ah and Jang Hye Ock of South Korea defeated Indonesia's Lili Tampi and Finarsih 3-15, 15-11, 15-10 for the women's title. It was all Denmark in the mixed doubles final as Lund and Marlene Thomsen defeated fellow Danes Jens Eriksen and Helene Kirkegaard 15-2, 15-6. (PAUL PAWLACZYK) BASEBALL Despite the absence of a collective bargaining agreement between the team owners and the players, major league baseball was played in 1995, though the season was shortened. The schedule was reduced from the usual 162 games to 144. There was an extra round of play-offs during the postseason, as established in the 1994 realignment of the divisions.