Backstretch Motorsports

He missed the last race, the first of the new season. He crashed his primary car at a test. So his IndyCar Series debut had to wait until the street course at St Petersburg.

And did he ever make up for it.

Graham Rahal becomes not only the youngest driver to win a IndyCar Series race (19 years and 93 days old.), he becomes the first of the transition drivers to do so. He held off defending race champion Helio Castroneves.

It was a good day for the Newman/Haas/Lanagan driver to say the least.

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Audi’s Lucas Luhr passed Romain Dumas on a restart with three minutes left Saturday to give the manufacturer a victory in the Acura Sports Car Challenge of St. Petersburg presented by XM Satellite Radio, its first overall victory of 2008. Luhr teamed with Marco Werner in Audi Sport North America’s No. 2 Audi R10 TDI as the German marque won on the streets of St. Petersburg for the second straight season.

Butch Leitzinger’s spin and crash in one of the Dyson Racing Porsche RS Spyders with 12 minutes left brought out the yellow flag with Penske Racing’s Dumas in the lead. The crash also collected the Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche of Jörg Bergmeister. Dumas, who claimed LMP2 honors with Timo Bernhard in a Penske Porsche RS Spyder, took the lead from Luhr with 19 minutes to go under green.

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AGR’s Tony Kanaan Takes P1 for First Street Course of ‘08

You want drama, you’ve got it. The IndyCar Series day of “Knock-Out Qualifying” at the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg provided.

After survivng the unfamiliar oval setting of the Homestead-Miami opener, the street course at St. Pete certainly made a huge difference for the former CCWS transition teams. The comfort zone of twisting turns provided a equalizing atmosphere for the new guys.

Will Power, Team Australia sponsored KV Racing Technologies Honda/Dallara/Firestone driver turned the fastest lap of the IndyCar weekend with a time of 1:02.1355 at a speed of 104.288

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