SONOMA, Calif. - The pendulum officially came full circle Sunday at Infineon Raceway as Scott Pruett dominated the Trans-Am Series for the BFGoodrich® Tires Cup race, Round 5 of this year's championship. The driver of the No. 7 Jaguar R Performance XKR earned his third victory this season, and unofficially retook the points lead from teammate Johnny Miller.
Miller (No. 64 Eaton Cutler-Hammer Jaguar XKR) suffered a flat tire late in the event after contact with Memo Gidley (No. 3 ACE Hardware Stores Jaguar XKR) and finished 12th. Interestingly, Miller took the points lead earlier this season when he won at Lime Rock, while Pruett finished 12th.
Boris Said (No. 33 ACS/GE Access/Sun Microsystems Ford Mustang) was second, followed by Michael Lewis, who earned his second podium finish this season in the No. 12 Westward Tools/The Crank Jaguar XKR. Gidley, making his first career Trans-Am Series start, finished fourth, ahead of Greg Pickett, driver of the No. 6 Cytomax Jaguar XKR.
Along with his third victory this season, Pruett won the BFGoodrich® Tires Take Control Award for leading the most laps, and the $2,000 Flowmaster American Thunder Challenge Award for winning the Jaguar Pole, leading the most laps, setting the fastest lap and winning the race. The victory is also Pruett's 17th in his career, tying him with Willy T. Ribbs and Dorsey Schroeder for seventh on the all-time win list. Pruett needs just 12 more victories to tie the record number of wins held by the legendary Mark Donohue.
'It's just great to roll off of the trailer with a great race car,' said Pruett, who led every lap from the pole. 'We made two shock changes, and that was it. It was great. Any time during the race, we could pick up the pace. We wanted to conserve the tires, in case Boris had anything for us at the end.
'The Winston Cup race was disappointing,' added Pruett, who finished 34th in that event after tangling with Kurt Busch.
Said said winning his first Winston Cup pole on Friday made it difficult to focus on the Trans-Am Series car. Said also competed in the NASCAR Southwest Tour race here Saturday.
'Scott beat me today,' said Said. 'Some days you're the cat. Some days you're the mouse. When I got the Winston Cup pole, my head wasn't really into my car and I couldn't do a good enough job setting it up. It was too soft. Scott had a little more car than we did. Second is still a pretty good finish. We're coming off a great weekend.'
Lewis was happy with his second podium finish this year. Lewis finished second at Mosport earlier in the season.
'Boris came shouldering by early in the race,' said Lewis. 'I held him up for one lap and then he was on his way. I had nothing for these guys. I think once everything got a little bit hot, we could match them, but they were six seconds ahead by then.
'My plan about both of these guys collapsing with 10 laps to go (both Pruett and Said competed in the Winston Cup race earlier today) didn't work out,' laughed Lewis, who only competed in the Trans-Am Series event over the weekend. 'Otherwise, it was a great weekend.'
The race was slowed by two caution flags for a total of seven laps. The race ran in a record one hour, 12 minutes and 42 seconds at an average speed of 83.764 miles per hour. Pruett set the fastest race lap of one minute, and 14.921 seconds at an average speed of 95.621 mph. Both are records as this year's event marks the first time the Trans-Am Series has run on the 1.949-mile NASCAR course at Infineon Raceway.
The race will air on a tape-delayed basis on SPEED Channel on Friday, June 27 at 9 p.m.
