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"   After a slow start to both the weekend and the race, Sebastien Bourdais surged to the front and dominated the second half of this year&amp;#039;s season-opening Long Beach Grand Prix. Defending champion Bourdais confirmed that he&amp;#039;s the favorite to win this year&amp;#039;s Champ Car World Series title, as he drove a masterful race, outbraking Paul Tracy for the lead and motoring away in the closing laps. Bourdais crossed the line four seconds ahead of early leader Tracy, who had to fend off a furious challenge from Bourdais&amp;#039;s teammate Bruno Junqueira, Justin Wilson and Mario Dominguez.   Bourdais was just a shade off the pace in qualifying, starting 4th behind Tracy, Junqueira and Dominguez. Through the race&amp;#039;s opening segment the 25-year-old Frenchman ran in 4th as Tracy took control at the front after an early battle with Junqueira. During this time Bourdais wasn&amp;#039;t able to stay in touch with Tracy and Junqueira, but he ran three more laps than Tracy on his first load of fuel and emerged from the first round of pitstops in 2nd place, right on Tracy&amp;#039;s tail. A few laps later Bourdais pounced, neatly outbraking Tracy into the first turn and steadily pulling away on his own as Tracy found himself occupied with strong challenges from Junqueira and new Forsythe teammate Mario Dominguez.   In the end Bourdais was in a class of his own. The Frenchman, the subject of a feature story in the May 2005 issue of Road &amp;amp;amp; Track, had completed only one full day of testing prior to Long Beach.   &amp;quot;In qualifying,&amp;quot; Bourdais observed, &amp;quot;I thought I was going fast, but I wasn&amp;#039;t because I was over-driving and making a lot of mistakes. Maybe I didn&amp;#039;t have enough practice and testing. But once the race got going I was driving better and everything came together.&amp;quot;   He was particularly pleased with his pass for the lead. &amp;quot;I think that was one of the best passes I&amp;#039;ve ever put on Tracy,&amp;quot; Bourdais said with a broad grin.   Remarkably, this was the first win at Long Beach for the Newman/Haas team in 18 years. Mario Andretti won for the team in 1984, &amp;#039;85 and &amp;#039;87, but since then Newman/Haas had struck out in the California streets despite being contenders to win almost every year.   Impressive performances also were turned in at Long Beach by Champ Car rookies Timo Glock and Ronnie Bremer. German Glock drove for the Jordan F1 team in the second half of 2004 and has jumped to Champ Car this year with Paul Gentilozzi&amp;#039;s Rocketsports team. Glock qualified and finished 6th in Long Beach, showing a fiesty style.   Bremer, a Dane, has come up through Formula 3 and Toyota/Atlantic and was a last-minute choice to drive for Keith Wiggins&amp;#039; HVM team. Bremer showed a lot of speed in Long Beach as he chased Glock across the line, both rookies beating last year&amp;#039;s rookie of the year A.J. Allmendinger and former champions Jimmy Vasser and Cristiano da Matta. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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