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Power wins Champ Car finale at Long Beach

Apr 21, 2008 - 3:04 AM LONG BEACH, California (Ticker) -- Will Power sent the Champ Car World Series out in style.

In a race labeled as the series finale, the Australian cruised to a dominant win Sunday at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

The race was an IndyCar Series event with points and prize money distributed. The Indy Racing League and Champ Car World Series signed a deal in February to unify the two open-wheel American circuits, bringing them under the umbrella of IRL.

On Saturday the regular IndyCar teams ran in Japan at Twin Ring Motegi, won by Danica Patrick.

Power finished over five seconds ahead of rookie Franck Montagny. Longtime Champ Car star Mario Dominguez was third.

Power started third in the 20-car field, but jumped into the lead with a great start and led the majority of the 83-lap timed race.

"I know it's very tough to pass around here. So I had a really good start, and from that moment on we got good fuel mileage," Power said. "The middle sector, I saved good fuel and had really good speed to pull a gap from Tagliani, and then in the last probably 15, 20 laps I just cruised very easy."

Rookie Enrique Bernoldi and Oriol Servia finished fourth and fifth, respectively.

Graham Rahal, the 19-year-old son of Bobby Rahal, who became the youngest driver ever to win a major open-wheel race two weeks ago in the IRL event at St. Petersburg, spun twice and finished 13th.

Justin Wilson started from the pole but lost the lead to Power moments after the green flag and wound up completing only 12 laps before going out with a mechanical problem.

"You know, we were both going to be there saving fuel. It was game on. Yeah, I mean, he was very quick, quick in qualifying," Power said. "Sebastien was very good at saving fuel, but I caught on to what he was doing last year and I was able to equal him. Justin I would say was probably going to do a similar job and was going to be - it might have been a tough race."