mericans Win Grand Am Cup Series Race in Santa Domingo

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic March 13, 2005; Peter Prengman writing for the AP reported that Americans Bill Auberlen and Justin Marks won the first Grand Am Cup Series race outside North America on Sunday, surviving the heat and a power outage midway through the race.

The race was temporarily stopped near the halfway point when the outage knocked out the track's computer system. The lost time in the middle of the competition meant the race was stopped at the three-hour time limit instead of 125 laps. The drivers completed 121 laps averaging 140 mph on straightaways, organizers said.

"This was the hardest race I've ever done," Auberlen said shortly after emerging from his BMW. "The car got so hot that it quickly ran out of water and I had to hang on to finish."

American drivers Rob Finlay and Michael McDowell, also driving a BMW, took second while Canadians Scott Maxwell and David Empringham came in third with a Ford Mustang GT.

With temperatures at 86 degrees and high humidity, 36 cars with alternating drivers barreled around Santo Domingo's 1.6 mile oceanfront racetrack at speeds reaching 160 mph. More than 10,000 fans attended the race.

Grand Am organizers said they picked the Spanish-speaking nation for an inaugural international event to harness a surge in popularity of motor racing across the region and Latin America.

"There is a tremendous interest in our kind of racing in Latin America," Grand Am spokesman Adam Saal said. "We hope to be coming back every year."

In November, Grand Am plans to take its much larger Rolex Sports Car Series to Mexico City. Grand Am is following in the footsteps of other major race organizers like Trans-Am, which held its 2003 Grand Prix finale in neighboring Puerto Rico -- also its first outside North America.