Ave built a six-second lead in the opening seven laps over Lopez, Drissi and
Pickett. On lap eight, Lopez began to separate his No. 06
WabashPower.com/Mobil 1/Goodyear Chevrolet Corvette from the pair of Jaguars
and started to reel in Ave's Mustang. Ten laps later, Lopez was all over Ave
and took the lead on lap 20.

From there, Ave fell back into the clutches of the pair of Jaguars,
eventually dropping from second to fourth on lap 24, with Pickett moving to
second and Drissi remaining third.

All the while, Rookie Skeen, known to the road racing community from the
2008 television show Setup, was slicing through the field after starting
last (19th) in his No. 70 Atlantic Autosport Chevrolet Corvette. Two laps
later, he was clear of Ave with his sights set on the Jaguars of Drissi and
Pickett.

In the meantime, Lopez drove away to a four second lead and looked to be in
good shape to take a Trans-Am Series debut win. In traffic, Pickett was able
to bring the gap down to the two second range, but on lap 32, it was back up
to nearly three seconds. Eight corners later, it was all over, as the
Corvette's motor expired on the back straightaway without warning.

"It just went," Lopez said. "I was 100 percent sure I had the win. I was
starting to cruise, saw Pickett coming after the traffic and was able to
pick the pace back up. Next time..."

At the same time Lopez's motor was expiring, Ave tangled with another car
and ended up in the Turn One gravel, ending a run that started with his
first series pole earlier in the day. Both incidents brought out the
full-course caution and when the field came around to be picked up by the
pace car, Pickett was in front, with Drissi second and Skeen third.

As the cleanup ensued, it appeared that the final three would be locked in
with the 36-lap, 91.44-mile contest ending under yellow, but on the final
tour, Drissi's Jaguar sputtered to a stop with a fuel pickup problem,
promoting Skeen to second and Ruman's No. 30 McNichols/Goodyear/Cenweld Corp
Chevrolet Corvette to third.

"This is a little fairy tale, winning the first race in the series that
Muscle Milk sponsors," Pickett said. "I'm just tickled for the SCCA and our
Muscle Milk brand. Trans-Am is back!

"It was a difficult race. I've done a lot of these races, and you can't push
too hard -- it just won't work over the course of a race. RJ [Lopez] was going
faster than I wanted to go at that point. But he was gradually coming back
to me. It was too bad for him, but look -- we have two GT-1 cars on the podium.
That's fantastic. We need more people to bring their GT-1 cars out to race
with us in Trans-Am!"

Skeen earned the Flowmaster Star of the Race Award and the Sunoco Hard
Charger of the race for his drive from 19th to second. He set a new Trans-Am
Series lap record during his run to the front of 1:22.650 (110.635 mph).
Skeen was visibly exhausted after the race.

"This is our first race this long and I don't have a cool suit," Skeen said.
"In fact, we've only had the car a month and weren't really sure we were
coming until last week. In qualifying, we had a wheel separate and didn't
turn a time. We knew we would have a good pace because we were good in
practice and that was on old tires -- we only had one set of sticker tires.

"From the start, we just went for all the marbles. I knew I was catching the
Jaguars, and figured Tony [Ave] was running away. Toward the end, I was
starting to get hot, but I was still keeping up. It's great to finish
second."

Ruman started sixth and ran seventh for the first 20 laps before gradually
moving up as other cars retired. When, Drissi stopped on course on the final
lap, she wasn't sure what to do and didn't realize where she'd finished
until after the checkered flag fell.

"This is just awesome," Ruman, who equaled her father Bob Ruman's best
finish of third, said. "This McNichols team has worked so hard for so long.
[Jeff] Emery and I were battling for a long time and when I got clear, I was
about 14-15 seconds off the cars ahead of me and we were trying to close in
and were beginning to. It really fell our way today in the end."

Ruman's accomplishment was particularly impressive as she was competing with
a 310ci engine in a sea of larger-displacement powerplants.

John Schaller, of Fort Myers, Fla., moved from eighth on the grid to finish
fourth in his No. 08 JRS Motorsport/Central Power Distribution Chevrolet
Camaro, followed by Drissi, who was the first car one lap down.