Simon Pagenaud was flawless in duplicating last year’s American LeMans Series win at Miller Motorsports Park bringing his Patron Tequila-sponsored Honda home for the win on Sunday. The winning race car completed 91 laps on the 3.048-mile outer course in the 2 hours, 45 minute race to win by 19.116 seconds ahead of the next finisher.

Pagenaud drove the final 1 hour and 45 minutes of the race after teammate David Brabham kept the car in position to win during the first hour. Jonny Cocker and Emanuele Pirro brought the Drayson Racing Lola-Judd in second while the Pickett-Graff Porche RS Spyder finished third in the LMP class.

Last year, Pagenaud won with teammate Gil de Ferran driving an Acura.

A quick final pit stop by the Honda team during the final 20 minutes of the race helped them take the checkered flag.

“Coming into this weekend we knew it would be the toughest race, so that’s what makes it so satisfying — having a package that is not as appealing as others’ on paper,” Brabham said. “So to come here a bit against the odds shows what’s so special with this great team. We were trying to decide what to do (for the last stop). We could watch what the others were going to do. We asked Simon if they (tires) could go another 20 minutes and he said they'd do just fine, and they did.”

Tommy Milner and Bill Aburlen in one of the Bobby Rahal-David Letterman owned BMWs finished second in the GT class 22 seconds behind Gianmaria Bruni and Jaime Melo in a Ferrari 430. The Rahal-Letterman BMW now leads the GT class in overall points in the series. Last year, the BMW entries were not as fortunate at MMP when they took each other out on the first lap.

Perenial winners Darren Law and Patrick Long in the Flying Lizard Porches were typically smooth and quick but slightly off the pace of the cruising Ferrari 430 GT of Melo. The Corvettes of Johnny O’Connell and Jan Magnussen were in an out-and-out of brawl with the Letterman- Rahal BMW piloted by Tommy Milner for second in the GT class. The miscue in a Corvette pit stop handed out a stop-and-go penalty to the Corvette, which took the pressure off the BMW while certainly disappointing the usual legion of Corvette fans.

An Oreca FLM09 car driven by Scott Tucker and Christopher Bochut won the LMPC class with a Porsche 911 topping the GTC class.

The American LeMans Series employs the latest technology, which, will eventually transfer to the world’s road cars. The series is the first to reward and encourage “Green Technology” for participants.

American LeMans is the first major racing series in the world to use alternative fuels for all cars. The extremely high-tech cars use clean diesel, various ethanol blends that are formulated and used emphasizing Green Technology. During an interview on Saturday, O’Connell said that while he is a fan of NASCAR; they have done nothing in the area of developing technology (especially in the area of fuel) that translate to the world’s road cars. Several advances in the composite constructions, electronics, brakes and tires have been directly linked to the American LeMans Series, O’Connell said.