Sunday, 20th April 2008

Jim Matthews and Marc Goossens take victory after race full of bumping and banging.

The second caution waved on lap 40 after Nick Ham tagged the barrier in the #70 SpeedSource Mazda RX-8 at the exit of Turn 8 after contact with Diego Alessi in the #21 Matt Connolly Motorsports BMW M3.

That allowed the top two cars to change drivers, with Alex Gurney taking over for Fogarty and Scott Pruett replacing Rojas. Fogarty, however, came in while the pits were still closed. He was forced to pit again the following lap, costing the team track position.

Law, running in his 100th Rolex Series race, led the field on the lap 44 restart

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Two laps after the restart, Max Angelelli in the #10 SunTrust Pontiac Dallara and Plumb had contact in the final turn, putting both cars into the wall and out of the race. That brought out another caution.

“The way I saw it, I was in front of him, completed the overtaking, I was in the middle of the corner and I just felt a big hit in the back,” said Angelelli after the new Dallara crashed out of its second consecutive event. “When he lost the advantage, he should have given it up.”

“We went off on a different strategy than other people,” Sigal said. “I was in second place when I gave the car to Matt. Everybody was racing hard, but this is the second year in a row we got taken out by the SunTrust car. It's unfortunate. Last year we were in second when we got rear-ended by Jan Magnussen. Today we were squeezed by Angelelli.”

After an extended cleanup, racing resumed on lap 52 with Law in the lead, followed by Memo Gidley in the #77 Doran Racing Kodak Ford Dallara and Pruett. Gurney was back in eighth.

Only one lap after the restart, Joey Hand spun the #23 Ruby Tuesday Porsche Crawford after contact with Pruett while battling for third. Hand stalled in the spin, losing a lap in the incident.

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