Dalziel takes first Atlantic win in Milwaukee.

Scotland's Ryan Dalziel claimed his first career Toyota Atlantic victory by eking out a 0.339secs advantage over fellow second-year competitor Kyle Krisiloff at the Milwaukee Mile Centennial 250 presented by Miller Lite last night.

Making his 15th start in the CART support series, former British F3 frontrunner Dalziel capitalised on a fortunate pole position and was hardly headed throughout the scheduled 60 laps around the historic 'Mile'.

After starting from a pole based on practice speeds after Friday's qualifying was rained out, Dalziel got the jump on the field heading into the first turn, and held off a hard-charging Krisiloff throughout the race. The victory eclipsed his previous best of second, which he achieved at Monterrey and Denver in 2002, and was also the first win for Sierra Sierra Enterprises, which came in only the team's sixth start in Toyota Atlantic.

At the start of the race, Canadian Michael Valiante (Lynx) attempted to pass rookie Aaron Justus (RuSPORT) on the inside of turn one, but his the car lost traction and completed a full 360-degree spin. Valiante did not make contact with any barriers and the other cars managed to avoid Valiante's spinning car, but the first two laps were run under caution as a result.

Dalziel made another quick getaway on the ensuing restart, but at the conclusion of lap three, Krisiloff -coming from a second row start - got a strong run off of turn four and passed Jonathan Macri (NTN) around the outside to take the second spot in the field. From that point on, Krisiloff chased Dalziel around the 1.032mile oval, and spent the majority of the race within a few feet of the Scot's gearbox.

"It's obviously an amazing result," Dalziel beamed, "When I came to the Atlantic series last year, I had high expectations. Unfortunately, I didn't have the most successful year, although I think the last two races of the year proved what I was capable of. That's really what secured me the drive with Sierra Sierra, and
I thank them for that.

"This weekend, they made it very easy for me. We rolled the car out of the truck and made minimal changes to it. We had focused in the past two practice sessions on trying to get a good race car. We knew that everybody was going to be fast, especially the top couple of guys, so it was important to cut through the traffic as quickly as we could without losing any time. I think we may not have had the fastest car in the race on our own, but I think we proved that when we got to traffic we had a stronger car than Kyle. That's what won the race for us.

"We had a car that we could fine tune throughout the race, and I worked well with my engineer over the radio. We just kept it rolling and kept the car as free as we
could. I think we deserved this result. We worked extremely hard over the past couple of months. I owe everything to Sierra Sierra for this result."

In his pursuit, Krisiloff turned the fastest lap of the race, clocking 150.749mph (24.645secs) on lap 54.

However, Krisiloff was never able to get close enough to pass Dalziel, and was forced to settle for second. Nevertheless, the runner-up spot was a career-best result for the 17-year old American, topping his previous Toyota Atlantic career best result of ninth at Long Beach last month. It was Krisiloff's first Toyota Atlantic start driving for 2002 series champions Dorricott Racing.

"A couple weeks ago, when we joined with Dorricott, we went to Portland and had a test, and everything went really well, so going into this weekend, we knew things were going to get better," he explained, "But we never thought that it would end up like this.

"When we showed up [at Milwaukee], we had expectations of running well into the top-ten, maybe even the top-five. We just wanted to have a good car for the race, and all weekend long, everybody just worked so hard. We really evaluated what the car was doing both in traffic and in the race. We came out with a pretty good car right off the truck, but we fine-tuned it. It didn't work quite as well in traffic as we probably would have wanted, and we couldn't really get close to Ryan, but, by ourselves, the car was really fast. Had we been able to qualify, I think maybe we could have done a little bit more, but, today, this was all we had. It was an awesome day though."

Rookie AJ Allmendinger (RuSPORT) finished third, having fought past Macri for third place on lap 39, and held off a challenge from Macri, Justus, and Danica Patrick (Team Rahal) for third in the closing stages. The result allowed Allmendinger to move into the points lead, and the reigning Barber Dodge champion now holds a two-point advantage over Macri, although the top five cars in the standings are still within ten points of each other.

"This is my first oval race, and we've only done a couple of days on an oval testing-wise," the rookie reminded, "This was basically my first weekend all together on an oval, and this definitely is a different oval compared to the one that we tested at, but I think, all-in-all, it was a great weekend for us.

"It's amazing, especially after Monterrey [where we were] sitting in eighth in points, to be able to come together [at the next two races]. At Long Beach, everything clicked, and we worked very well here too. We didn't put a lot of testing and emphasis into the ovals since there was only one that we were going to be racing at so, to come out of here with a podium was what we were hoping for, but not necessarily a huge expectation for us.

"Now, going to Laguna Seca - where we had a great test - I'm just looking forward to it. I love the track, it's my hometown, and I think that's where we're really going to shine. I think Long Beach was just a preview of what we were capable of on the road courses and street courses, and I'm really looking forward to it. Just being in the points lead right now is just a huge bonus."

Macri came home fourth for his fourth consecutive top-five finish, while Justus finished fifth and moved into third in the point standings, just three points back of Macri and five in arrears of Allmendinger. Patrick collected her second top-six result in three career Toyota Atlantic starts with a sixth place performance, but ran as high as fifth within five laps of the finish, before losing the spot to Justus after problems in traffic on lap 66.

It was a tough outing for former championship leader Valiante, as the opening lap spin began a difficult day. The Canadian was never a factor in the race and finished eleventh, two laps down to Dalziel. As a result, Valiante slipped from the points lead to fourth in the standings heading into round four at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in two weeks time.

While Valiante brought out the day's first caution flag, the only other yellow came out on lap 31 when 2001 series champion Hoover Orsi (Sierra Sierra) spun in turn two while running in fourth place and hit the outside retaining wall with the left rear of the car. Orsi was not injured in the accident.