– From staff and news services

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Sonoma just faded a little bit from the psyche of Marcos Ambrose.

Starting from the pole for the first time at Watkins Glen International, Ambrose dominated the Nationwide Zippo 200 on Saturday and won the race for the third straight time. He led 60 of 82 laps, had a perfect driver rating of 150, and beat Joey Logano by 2.8 seconds.

“It’s been a roller-coaster ride for me,” said Ambrose, who announced less than two weeks ago that he was leaving JTG-Daugherty racing at the end of the season. “We’ve been through so much together. The last three weeks have been challenging. My future is uncertain. It just feels really satisfying to think that we’ve come this far and leave as good friends at the end of the season.”

Ambrose pulled away from Logano on the final restart with 15 laps remaining and coasted to the finish line after building a lead of nearly 4 seconds.

Kevin Harvick somehow avoided a 10-car wreck and overcame a dustup on the first lap and a speeding penalty on pit road to finish third.

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Points leader Brad Keselowski was fourth, followed by Kyle Busch.

Ron Fellows, Nelson Piquet, Jacques Villeneuve, Steve Wallace and Michael McDowell rounded out the top 10.

Carl Edwards, second in points, finished 33rd after losing a cylinder and dropped 327 points behind Keselowski.

Ambrose had won the previous two Nationwide races here but never had started from the pole. That changed on Saturday morning. He set a qualifying record with a lap of 122.410 mph to break the record of 121.999 mph set a year ago by Harvick.

NASCAR TRUCKS: Todd Bodine dominated the latter stages of the Nashville 200 for a runaway win in Nashville, Tenn.

Bodine opened up a lead of more than 5 seconds in the closing laps for his second victory of the season.

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Austin Dillon, who started second alongside the pole-sitter Bodine, finished second. Aric Almirola, second to Bodine in the point standings, was third.

Timothy Peters finished fourth. Johnny Sauter rounded out the top five.

IRL: Will Power won the pole for today’s race in Lexington, Ohio, turning a lap time of 1:07.199 at the twisting 2.258-mile course.

Dario Franchitti qualified second, followed by Takuma Sato and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

The pole is Power’s seventh of the season, tying a record set by Penske Racing teammate Helio Castroneves in 2007.

The performance allowed Power to clinch IndyCar’s first Road Course Championship. The former ChampCar regular has dominated the road events this season, collecting four victories and finishing no worse than fourth in seven road races.

Power enters today’s race with a 51-point lead over Franchitti in the overall standings.

BEECH RIDGE: Bill Whorff of West Bath beat Scott Moore of Anson and Brad Babb of Windham to win the NASCAR Pro Series 40-lap feature race at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway.

Other feature winners were: Corey Bubar of Windham, Sports Series; Randy Snow of West Buxton, Wildcat; and Ray Letellier of Hollis, Road Runner.


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