TOOELE — Holding onto a lead was no simple matter for Simon Pagenaud.
Two different times on Sunday afternoon, he shot to the front of the pack, only to surrender the lead to another driver a few laps later. That cycle finally came to an end on his last pit stop.
Pagenaud shot out of the pits with lightning speed and, just as quickly, put all would-be challengers behind him.
"I knew if we could be close enough coming into the pit stops, we could leapfrog them, and that's what we did," said David Brabham, Pagenaud's teammate.
Pagenaud claimed a third consecutive American Le Mans victory for his team by finishing 19.116 seconds ahead of Emanuele Pirro to win the Utah Grand Prix at Miller Motorsports Park for a second straight year.
After overcoming a slow start, the Patron Highcroft racing team claimed its first lead in the 31st lap shortly after Pagenaud replaced Brabham as driver an hour into the 2 hour and 45 minute race.
It proved to be a short-lived advantage when Clint Field took over the lead just five laps later. Pagenaud took it back again on the 41st lap only to surrender it to Pirro after six more laps.
Pirro stayed in front for quite a while and built a small buffer until making a pit stop. At that point, Pagenaud charged ahead and increased the distance between his HPD ARX-01c car and the field with each ensuing lap.
"When I saw we were in the lead, after the last pit stop, I thought I had a chance," Pagenaud said, admitting he started thinking championship from that moment forward. "After a few laps, I thought I was maintaining the gap. I was as efficient as if I was in an Indy car."
The victory in Utah helped Pagenaud and Brabham jump up to an 11-point lead in the LMP class standings.
Brabham figured the race at Miller would be his team's toughest of the season and felt like Pagenaud did good gaining time on the corners to make up for slowdowns in other places.
He also was thankful his teammate made up for a tough start that saw Brabham surrender the pole position Pagenaud earned a day earlier and drop as low as fifth before battling back.
"Everybody could see from the start I was just a sitting duck," Brabham said. "I tried to jump the start as much as I could. It probably didn't look like I did, but I did.
"By the time I got the first corner, I was fifth. That sort of put us on our back foot for a while to try and get through the traffic."
Level 5 motorsports duo Scott Tucker and Christophe Bouchut finished atop the LMP Challenge class and placed fifth overall in their ORECA FLM09.
Bouchut finished a full lap ahead of Sandy resident Gunnar Jeannette, who made up incredible ground to claim a podium finish after a poor start by teammate Christian Zugel nearly put them outside the top 20. Tucker and Bouchut now lead the LMPC standings by 11 points.
Jaime Melo and Gianmaria Bruni emerged as the GT class winners in their Ferrari F430 GT and took ninth place on the overall grid. They finished 21 seconds ahead of Bill Auberlen and Tommy Milner for their first win of 2010.
The victory boosted them two points ahead of Patrick Long and Jorg Bergmeister in the GT class point standings.
Melo was the lead GT driver through the last half of the race, and his lead was not really threatened over the final few laps. Aware of his position, Melo concentrated on finishing strong rather than trying to climb up the grid.
"The last half-hour I just (tried) to save the tires and save the car because I think we were ahead 30 seconds," Melo said.
Jeroen Bleekemolen and Tim Pappas took home their second straight GT Challenge victory. Bleekemolen, a pole winner on Saturday, finished 52.955 seconds ahead of Butch Leitzinger and Juan Gonzalez in his Porsche 911 GT3 Cup.
The latter duo retained their overall lead in the GTC standings.
Antonio Downs was the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Championship winner after finishing the 14-lap race 0.626 seconds ahead of Charlie Shears. Ross Smith won the 24-lap Patron GT3 Challenge after finishing 2.706 seconds in front of Chris Cumming. George Smith won the 16-lap Air Power GT race by a 15.201 second margin over Loren Beggs. Chris Farrell won the remaining support race when he finished 26.224 seconds ahead of Sam Souvall to win the 15-lap Radical Sports Race.
e-mail: jcoon@desnews.com