Braselton (21 NOV '10) - Although newcomer Joze Rozman was the fastest driver of the day, it was Henrik Müller who able to take the checkered flag first. Than sometimes you need the necessary luck in order to make the old saying come true: “To finish first, you must first finish”. While Rozman fought his way far back from the end of the field up to the lead he lost his concentration for just a second and also lost the race – with just two laps to go and a twelve second lead!
 

However, Müller was not that slow because he still was able to take the pole position with a lap time of 1:09.281 and led 63 of 75 laps. While Rozman didn’t post a lap time in qualifications he had to start from the end of the field out of position twelve. This and the strong competition were the ingredients for a tautly 191 mile race on the beautiful roller coaster called Road Atlanta. Since the opening in 1970 the motorsports is at home on this hilly 2.54 mile track which probably has some of the biggest elevations of all closed course circuits. 
 
On the start Müller pulled away soon meanwhile the action behind started. Rozman overtook already five cars in the first lap just like a hot knife going through butter. Dutchman Joey Schmidt was the big loser during the first laps as he had to give up four positions after a spin off the track while braking for turn seven which leads on the long backstretch. Somehow Marty Sponsler was able to do the same exactly in the same moment while he tried to accelerate out of the turn. …a funny image for the spectators and lots of smoke for the other drivers around them.
 
Meanwhile Rozman fought his way up to front he had to make a little stop when he wanted to go by Gary Borkenhagen and Tim Doyle who both had their own fight for a very long time. Also a longer fight further back had Daniel Ensch and Jeffrey York with the better end for Ensch.
 
After the first round of pit stops Rozman was already dangerously close to the lead and surprisingly was able to get the leader already before the second round of pit stops but then had to pit. With a very fast stop Müller was able get the lead back just to renew the fight with his hunter. All in all Rozman was much faster and overtook the number one car again. But with only two laps to go and a lead of 12 seconds he lost his concentration for just one moment while heading towards turn one. The result was a high speed spin off the track with a hard impact into the barrier and the loose of everything he fought for 73 laps for. Müller who already slowed down in order to save fuel to avoid a last splash-n-dash had enough lead to a strong second placed Nico Brandt. Brandt this time showed a solid but less conspicuous race after his great win of the Indy Grand Prix of Alabama just one month ago.
 
In the championship point standings Müller takes back the lead from Yang Ou who missed the race as well as two others which demonstrates how dominat and consistent Ou has been in the past races he entered. Tim Doyle still is in position three. The hard-charger of the week is Gary Borkenhagen who gained 13 positions with his 2nd championship race.
 
The next race will be the extraordinary famous Indianapolis 500 mile race which annually attracts about 400,000 people to the track on race day. The qualification for this special race already starts this Friday with the first round of qualifications and ends one day later with the traditional “Bump-Day”. In the end there will be 33 happy drivers who will race the Indy 500 on Sunday the following weekend (December 5th) and some who got “bumped out” of the race (just like Paul Tracy got bumped out of the race at this year’s Indy 500). You will have the chance to watch the race live in HD quality on Web Racing Network (WRN) web TV.

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