LONG BEACH, California (AFP) — Australia's Will Power won the final Champ-car race here Sunday, leading 81 of 83 laps to capture the 34th Grand Prix of Long Beach by 5.094 seconds over France's Franck Montagny.
Power captured his third Champ-car victory in the grand farewell for the Champ-car series, which merged with the Indy Racing League two months ago to reunify the US-based open-wheel racing rivals after a 12-year civil war.
Racers at Long Beach scored drivers championship points in the Indy-car title chase. Nine drivers from former Champ-car teams, including Power, were among 20 drivers who took part in the event.
Long Beach will have to wait until next year for a full-field IRL event because of a scheduling conflict with a race in Japan, where American Danica Patrick became the first woman to win an Indy-car race earlier Sunday.
Neither Long Beach nor Japan organizers would move their events to accommodate the merger. Each was sponsored by a different Japanese automaker.
Mexico's Mario Dominguez was third with Brazilian rookie Enrique Bernoldi fourth and Spain's Oriol Servia fifth.
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