Cautions would dominate this race, on this tight track, and the ability of teams to adjust their strategy accordingly would affect the outcome. But Bill Riley made the right calls to put his driver in a position to win – Max Angelelli, in the SunTrust car, just about the fastest man throughout the meeting.
The start, and the many ensuing restarts, for the 41-car field packed on this tiny roval would be complete mayhem. The first to pay the price was the Rolex winning Bell Motorsports Doran. Forest Barber got tapped in the rear and spun in turn two on the very first lap. The spin dropped him to 27th position and a lap down. “We went down one lap and almost two laps after the pit stop,” explained Barber. “Terry drove his heart out to make the ground up, but I guess Phoenix just isn’t our track, at least not this year.” Borcheller had an incident of his own, but was really suffering when the ‘blower’ that cools the #54’s cockpit failed. Adding to the green flag madness were Cort Wagner, Chris Hall and Craig Stanton: all three drivers would be asked back to pit lane for a drive through penalty for jumping the start. Max Papis pulled away from all of this easily and would maintain the lead spot for the majority of his stint. GT pole sitter Bill Auberlen had the PTG BMW on the move early, passing several DPs as he built a lead that would last throughout the race.
Just a few green laps were completed before debris on the track from the Orbit car caused caution number two. Jay Policastro: “About 15 laps into my stint I came into NASCAR turn 3 and somebody had laid oil down pretty bad and the 57 car just lost it. It looked like his car was going to go down to the apron, but he came right back up. I was up against the wall to try to miss him, but he hit my left front and broke the upright.”
Quietly having a nice run was Homestead winner Milka Duno. She had so far avoided any trouble and kept the #2 Crawford well into the top ten. It was looking like she would be able to turn the Crawford over to Andy Wallace in pretty good shape… but a brush with an SGS car shortly after the third restart put the Crawford into the tire wall and gave us another caution. Damage was minimal but the time lost was too great. Milka: “I don’t know what he was thinking, he turned into me right at the apex, I had nowhere to go.” Another chaotic restart and there was more trouble. Caution number four. The #70 Multimatic of Selby Wellman spun and took out Joao Barbosa in the Maserati. The Multimatic lost its front end and was stationary on course. A broken rear suspension would end a promising start for the new Maserati. Grand Am has allowed Maserati of Washington to change the engine mounting position, and the motor is now three inches lower and six inches further back in the chassis. This centers the weight more evenly giving the car much better balance. Joao Barbosa: “The car was very, very good. The prototype came into the hairpin sideways, out of control. When he tried to straighten it out he hit me in the side.” At this point I was not sure we are ever going to get any green flag racing. Obviously the yellow flags to this point have killed the continuity of the race, the only constant so far being Max Papis and the Ganassi Riley in the lead. During this caution period though was possibly the turning point in the race. Team Ganassi chose to keep Max out and wait for their scheduled fuel window, surely anticipating another caution would come along. Bill Riley decided to bring his car in for full service and driver change to Max Angelelli. This would be big, as a long green flag period followed, forcing the #01 car to pit under green. Wayne Taylor on the restarts: "It's like stock car racing, just madness out there. Other than that it's been great fun." We finally get an extended green flag period and some good racing. Gunnar Jeannette was doing a nice job in the hot, pink, Gunnar Racing GT3-RS and moved up to second in GT. Max Angelelli was driving like a man possessed, bullying his Riley up the leader board. A fierce battle raged for position between Oswaldo Negri in the Shank Doran and Shane Lewis in the Southard Fabcar. Negri made an aggressive move to pull alongside Lewis going into the very fast entry to the infield. Shane apparently didn’t expect it and turned into Negri, making hard contact. Lewis saved the car by bailing out of the turn and going straight into the NASCAR banking. No caution flag, but a broken steering rack ended the #7 Fabcar’s race. Negri continued, but the team was unable to change the rear tire because of damage to the lug. “We really found it out there in the race,” said the impressive Lewis. “The car was running great. We were cruising and we were still taking positions. We fought up to third and then the 6 car just tried a move that was, I'll just say 'aggressive'. He hit us pretty hard and damaged the steering. Three or four more caution flags… I’m sorry I lost track before the end of the race. The sixth one, for Theys in the #27 Doran spinning and hitting the wall ("We had more understeer with that set of tires than the first set, and I had to back off the throttle quite a bit to take that turn," explained Theys afterwards. "I guess that time I didn't back off enough. The rear snapped around on me in turn four and the front hit the outside wall."), would bunch the field, putting Pruett in the #01 within striking distance of Angelelli. It was a valiant effort by Scott Pruett as he really put the pressure on Angelelli. But Max drove flawlessly, churning out qualifying-like times lap after lap. The SunTrust Riley seemed to get stronger as the race wore on. Kelly Collins was able to build on the great effort of Cort Wagner and pass the #02 Ganassi Riley in the closing stages to secure a podium finish for the G & W Doran.
In GT, no one could touch the Auberlen / Said BMW as they took their second straight win. Outstanding effort by Jeannette and the Gunnar Racing crew earns their first podium of the season. The Racers Group finishes 3rd and 4th in class. A nice final stint from Ian James, in which he moved up several positions, to net a podium for himself and teammates RJ Valentine and Chris Gleason. This is the Kevin Buckler / Liz Halliday car.
The
AASCO #16 of Stanton & Murry never quite recovered from
the early penalty. The TPC Racing team cars traded the lead between
them for most of the race. Murry was able to split the TPC Porsches
and take second, after a furious charge. "That's what racing's
all about! If we had won it would have been even sweeter but it
was great racing for the fans,” commented Murry.
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Contact
between the Mears Multimatic and the Orbit Porsche brought out the
first caution. The front of the Paul Mears car was destroyed, putting
an end to a forgettable weekend for the team. The Orbit car was
able to resume but the damage would hinder them throughout the race.
The #22 PTG of Justin Marks also got caught up in the incident and
would retire early (11 laps). Several teams would use this early
caution to get their quicker drivers in the car. Theys took over
for Lienhard, Ian James in for RJ Valentine and Borcheller replacing
Barber. Terry Borcheller had his work cut out for him as he was
not only a lap down but was also at the end of the field after the
pit stop. Borcheller drove like a man possessed, charging through
the field, but the deficit proved too large to overcome.
The
early cautions and pit stops had jumbled the running order, but
there were a few drivers that were impressing. Wayne Taylor in the
SunTrust Riley dropped back to fifth after the start, but worked
his way back up and was keeping the pressure on Papis. Cort Wagner
and Darren Law were both slicing their way up through the field.
Cort and teammate Kelly Collins would keep their Doran BMW in contention
all race. Unfortunately, Darren Law and the #58 Brumos team would
be snake bit again as a broken axle would end their day. 
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