Michael Schumacher closed the championship gap to title rival Fernando Alonso by another two points to 13 as he took the European Grand Prix victory from the Spaniard in what was a pretty processional race decided over a handful of laps during the second round of stops.

The start of the race saw Alonso lead away from his Pole Position with Schumacher close behind. The gap remained around the one second mark for the next 39 laps until Alonso pitted his Renault for the second time. Schumacher had enough fuel on board his 248 F1 to put in two blistering laps and then make his pit stop. Schumacher emerged from the pits with a comfortable lead over Alonso, one he would control to the chequered flag.

Alonso seemed to effectively concede defeat after losing out in the second round of pit stops, controlling his pace and ensuring that the hard-charging Felipe Massa would not try and get the jump on him in the closing stages.

Massa put in a solid performance in the second Ferrari, recovering well from a badly judged pit stop in which he lost a great deal of time behind Jarno Trulli, to take the chequered flag less than a second behind Alonso and secure his first Formula One podium position.

Kimi Raikkonen got the jump on Rubens Barrichello on lap one of the race and ran a long first stint to ensure a comfortable fourth position on a day when McLaren Mercedes did not have the pace to win. The fourth position keeps the Finn in the championship chase, but he slipping further and further away from the leading duo.

It was a tough race again for Honda, but Barrichello drove a steady, if unspectacular, race to finish in fifth position a minute behind Raikkonen and holding off a late challenge from Giancarlo Fisichella and Nico Rosberg. Jenson Button retired from the race while running fifth mid-distance with an engine failure.

Sixth position for Fisichella was a reasonable result, aided in part by a slick second stop that moved him ahead of Jacques Villeneuve. Fisichella would take the chequered flag 1.5s behind Barrichello with Nico Rosberg putting in a storming performance in his Williams Cosworth. Starting flat last in 22nd, a long first stint worked well for Rosberg and he finished a fine seventh less than half a second behind Fisichella.

Jacques Villeneuve picked up the final point after a very impressive drive once again. Sixth position certainly could have been on for the Canadian, but he lost out in the second round of stops with first Fisichella and then Rosberg gaining track position. Ralf Schumacher looked set for a sixth position finish as he fended off Fisichella with just six laps to go. Sadly for the Toyota driver, his engine failed and his race was over. It was a similar situation for Juan Pablo Montoya on the very same lap, only that the Colombian was running out of the points in ninth position.

Scott Miller, current crew chief on the No. 07 Jack Daniel’s team, will assume the crew chief position on the No. 31 Cingular Wireless team with driver Jeff Burton for the final two races this season and next year.

Kevin Hamlin, current crew chief on the No. 31 Cingular Wireless team, will move to the No. 07 Jack Daniel’s team for the rest of this season with driver Dave Blaney. He will be assisted by Gil Martin who, it was announced in October, will be the crew chief for the team next year with new driver Clint Bowyer. Hamlin has been offered another position within the RCR organization at the conclusion of this season.

“We’re making these moves next week to get a head start on 2006,” said Richard Childress, president and CEO of RCR. “We had already announced that Gil was going to be the Jack Daniel’s team crew chief for 2006 so it made sense to get him running as quickly as possible.

“We have put Scott Miller and Jeff Burton together on the Cingular Wireless team in an effort to take the success the team has had this season to the next level. Kevin Hamlin has been a valuable part of RCR for many years and we look forward to him continuing to contribute to our success in the future.”

Martin will remain as the crew chief for Bowyer and the No. 2 ACDelco team in their quest for the 2005 NASCAR Busch Series championship. Jeremy Bullins, the team’s engineer who will also move to the No. 07 Jack Daniel’s team next season, will assist Hamlin and Martin for the balance of the season.

“This in no way will take away from the effort Clint, Gil and the ACDelco team will give toward winning the Busch championship,” said Childress. “They’ve still got a good shot at it and Gil has great guys working for him on both teams so we won’t let him get overloaded from either direction.”

Earnhardt is joined by team owner Jack Roush, NASCAR ace Harry Gant, female racing pioneer Janet Guthrie and racing executive H.A. “Humpy'’ Wheeler in the class to be inducted April 27.”This is one heck of a class for 2006,'’ Jim Freeman, executive director of the Hall, said Wednesday.

Earnhardt became one of the most popular drivers in NASCAR history, posting 76 victories and 281 top-five finishes en route to winning more than $40 million. He was a three-time Driver of the Year who also won 21 Busch races and four IROC Series championships.

He was killed in a crash at the 2001 Daytona 500.

Roush Racing team has claimed championships in the Nextel Cup, Busch and Craftsman Truck series. Roush’s five-car team has won the last two Cup titles.

Gant won more than 300 short-track races, including 21 in the NASCAR Sportsman series, now the Busch series. Gant left Winston Cup in 1994 with 18 wins and 17 poles. He also raced in a limited number of truck series races in 1996.

In 1977, Guthrie became the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500 and in the Daytona 500. She finished ninth in the 1978 Indianapolis 500 with a team she formed, owned and managed. It was the best showing for a woman at Indy until Danica Patrick’s fourth-place finish this season.

Guthrie’s top Cup finish was sixth at Bristol in 1977, and she qualified ninth at both Talladega and Bristol that year.

Wheeler has been the innovative president and general manager of Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., for nearly three decades. The track was the first to use an advanced lighting system to host night races and offer extensive VIP suits and condominiums.

The 26-year-old Edwards is fearless enough and cool enough to drive around the top part of the racetrack, inches from the concrete wall, to mix it up with other drivers in traffic at nearly 200 mph, or to hold off a veteran such as Jimmie Johnson to win his first Cup race by a few feet earlier this season at Atlanta.

He has plenty of talent, as evidenced by his three victories this year in his first full season of racing in NASCAR’s top stock car series and the fact that he is one of the 10 drivers who qualified for the season-ending 10-race Chase for the championship.

Edwards also is a well-spoken, good-looking guy with a toothy smile and a glib way with words that goes over well with sponsors, reporters and fans.Not bad for a guy who four years ago was a part-time teacher just hoping to be given a chance to follow his first love, racing.

People in the stock car sport laughed about the kid who placed personal ads in racing publications and handed out business cards that listed his occupation as “race car driver.”

But here he is, driving for the elite Roush Racing team and tied with Ryan Newman for fourth, 107 points behind leader Tony Stewart, with three races left in the Chase, beginning with Sunday’s Dickie’s 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Team owner Jack Roush has an almost unerring eye for talent, bringing both reigning Cup champion Kurt Busch and 2003 champ Matt Kenseth up to the Cup series and promoting Edwards from the Craftsman Truck Series to Cup midway through the 2004 season, when Jeff Burton — another driver Roush helped turn into a star — left the team.

Asked after Edwards won another Atlanta race Sunday if he really believes the youngster can win the title this season, Roush’s face lit up.

“I wouldn’t bet against Carl Edwards,” said Roush, who put all five of his Cup entries into the Chase this year. “I bet heavily with the investments that I make, as well as my sponsors, but we think that Carl can be as good in this business as anybody that’s been. The sky is the limit.”

Since he drove the last 13 races of 2004 — five more than allowed for a future rookie candidate — Edwards isn’t eligible for first-year honors this season. But neither Roush nor Edwards seems too unhappy about that.

“Once Jeff Burton made his decision not to go forward with us in 2005, we said, ‘OK, we’ll use the rest of 2004 to get Carl as ready as he can be,’ with the dream being that we could make him a championship contender,” Roush said.

“Did I think that would happen (this year)? No, not really,” the owner added, grinning. “But did I hope it would happen? You bet.”Edwards, who also won a race at Pocono earlier this season, dominated the second half of Sunday’s race at Atlanta despite having four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon trying to chase him down late in the race.

Like Stewart, who holds a 43-point edge over Jimmie Johnson heading into Texas, Edwards paid his dues as a short track racer. So Stewart isn’t the least bit surprised how Edwards is handling the pressure, both on and off the track.

“He’s a short track driver,” said Stewart, making that sound like high praise. “He’s not one of those kids who is going to give up.”

Edwards has found being in the spotlight a bit uncomfortable at times, but nothing he can’t handle.

“My friends and family who come to the races and see me doing interviews and signing autographs laugh because they know who I really am and how funny it is that I’m getting all this attention,” Edwards said.

But Edwards is totally serious when it comes to driving a race car. Some drivers in his position might be satisfied just to be in the Chase in their first full season in Cup. Edwards wants more.

“We’re going out here and make a run for the championship,” he said. “I did not expect to pick up as many points as we did (Sunday) and anything can happen in racing. So we’re not going to quit until the last lap of the last race.”

As for feeling pressure, forget it.

“There isn’t any pressure,” Edwards said. “I do this because I really love racing and I want to win this championship. I think, if anything, I might be having just a little bit too much fun, which Jack agrees with.

“But nobody expects us to be here. Nobody expects us to win the championship. We’re going to go give it our best and see what happens — and have some fun doing it.”

But Wallace has too much pride to simply ride around the next three weeks before he drives off into retirement.

“I’ll be going as hard as I can to salvage what we can,” Wallace said. “I think the remainder of the year, my goal now is to win a race and get back in the top five in the points at least.”

Wallace had hoped to leave the sport with a second Cup championship, but his chances ended last weekend in Atlanta when he was involved in an accident seven laps into the race. It was his third consecutive wreck and dropped Wallace to eighth in the Chase for the championship standings, 257 points behind leader Tony Stewart.

“It’s been real upsetting the last three weeks,” Wallace said. “This deal at Atlanta was just unbelievable. Seven laps in the race, a fellow blows a right front tire, spins in front of me, there’s nowhere to go. That’s three in a row.

“That really, really hurt. We’ve got the car to be in the top one or two in points easy, but we just haven’t had the luck.”

This isn’t the way Wallace wanted to go out after 22 full seasons. He started the 10-race playoffs maintaining that simply being eligible for the title was not enough for him — Wallace wanted to win it.

It marked a resurgence of sorts for the 49-year-old Wallace, who had put his career back on the fast track after several disappointing seasons. The 1989 series champion had been a model of consistency throughout his career, winning at least one race in 16 consecutive seasons and finishing in the top 10 in points from 1993 through 2002.

He hit a drought midway through 2001 and went almost three years without a win. He also found himself outside the top 10 the past two seasons, an also-ran in a sport that was shifting toward younger, tech-savvy drivers.

So this was to be Wallace’s final year, regardless of where he ended up.

But as Wallace put together strong runs throughout this season, going out as a champion became a real possibility. Now that it’s over, he’s trying to take solace in making one final run and earning the right to attend the season-ending awards ceremony in New York — something he had missed the last two years.

“I’m going out going to New York, [so] I’m not beating myself up,” Wallace said. “If I wasn’t in the top 10, I wouldn’t have felt good about it. I’m in the top 10, everybody knows I’ve run well.

“If it wasn’t for these last couple weeks, I wouldn’t be so damn dejected like I am now. I just can’t believe this is happening. I’m devastated about what the hell has happened because I really thought I was a legitimate candidate to win this championship.”

But Wallace isn’t so upset that he’d consider returning for yet another season behind the wheel. Unlike Mark Martin, who also planned to retire at the end of the year but was talked out of it by car owner Jack Roush, Wallace won’t be persuaded.

His situation is similar to Martin’s in that Kurt Busch has signed on to drive the No. 2 Dodge in 2007, and if he can’t get a release for next year, car owner Roger Penske has no one lined up to immediately replace Wallace. Martin found himself in that position when Jamie McMurray signed on for his ride, and Roush fretted he’d have an empty seat if Martin left in 2006.

But replacement driver or not, Wallace is moving on in three more weeks.

“I love racing, no doubt about it,” he said. “I got behind in the points now because of these crazy wrecks that happened three weeks in a row, which I never would have believed it happened. It makes me want to keep on racing and try to get myself back up in there. But that’s unfortunately over, and I’ve got three more to go.

“That’s going to be it. But I’m comfortable with my decision, I really am. I made the right decision and I’m driving my brains out.”