It hasn’t taken Marco Andretti long to show his potential as a racer.

The 16-year-old son of Michael Andretti and grandson of Mario Andretti wrapped up the championship last weekend in the Skip Barber 2.0-liter Formula Dodge Eastern Region.

The rookie led all the way to win the first of two races. That was enough to clinch the title for Andretti, who crashed in the rain-soaked second event at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut.

Andretti finished the season with eight wins and five other top threes in 14 races. That was good enough to beat Peter Ludwig by 24 points in the series standings.

“The experience Marco is getting is invaluable, and, at the age of 16, he is already two years ahead of where I was at his age,” said Michael Andretti, a longtime Indy-car standout who retired earlier this season to be co-owner of Andretti Green Racing in the IRL.

With his father busy, Marco’s budding career has been guided by Jeff Andretti, Michael’s younger brother, a former Indy-car racer and the Eastern Region champion in 1983.

“Next year, he’ll do (Skip Barber) Nationals,” Michael said. “Then, he’ll move up to Pro.”

Marco will get a head start on 2004, racing this weekend in the Formula Dodge National Championship season finale in Monterey, Calif.

He also has been invited to participate in a charity karting event Nov. 8 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, pairing with Formula One standout Rubens Barrichello and the IRL’s Tony Kanaan, who drives for Andretti Green.

Formula One and the IRL are filled with drivers who learned their trade on the tracks of Europe, but Michael wants his son to get most of his racing education at home.

“If he’s going to be driving for me one day, I think it’s important that we keep him in the United States and keep him under the eye of our sponsors so they start following him and keeping an eye on him that way,” Michael said. “I don’t know about driving in Europe in the lower ranks.

“It’s good training, but I’m not always liking the training that they get. I think it’s dirty driving a lot of it. It’s cutthroat, and that’s not what it’s about. I think you develop a lot of bad habits.”

• Gaughan Racin’: A little more than a week ago, Brendan Gaughan was leading NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck series by 72 points and spending a lot of time daydreaming about a record fourth consecutive victory at Texas Motor Speedway — a few miles from his family’s ranch.

Now, with his lead sliced to just 20 points over Travis Kvapil with four races remaining, Gaughan goes into Saturday’s Silverado 350 on the 11/2-mile oval needing another win, or at least a top-10 finish.

A 15th-place finish last week in South Boston, Va., ended Gaughan’s streak of eight top fives in nine races.

Now, Gaughan, who also has three straight wins at California Speedway, has more to think about than extending his Texas streak and breaking the series record he shares with Jack Sprague — who won three straight at Phoenix International Raceway in 1996-97.

The points race is the closest in series history, with the top four separated by just 74 points. Ted Musgrave is third and Dennis Setzer fourth.

• Trans-Am triple: Scott Pruett joined an elite group last weekend when he clinched his third Trans-Am Tour championship.

The only other drivers to win as many titles in the venerable series for production-based, V-8-powered sports cars are Mark Donohue, Tommy Kendall and Paul Gentilozzi, who owns the cars Pruett is racing.

“My approach this season was different,” said Pruett, who also led Rocketsports Racing to its third team owners’ championship and Jaguar to its third manufacturers’ title. “In the past, the Trans-Am Tour was a stepping stone to something else. Now, I’m here because I want to be.

“It’s a whole different mind-set this time. It’s been a dream season. It’s been a lot of fun.”