Team Stargate Worlds Enjoys its Maiden Win

Tooele, May 17, 2009: After a phenomenal Saturday that saw Team Stargate Worlds driver Simona De Silvestro put her #78 machine on pole, her first career pole position, and her teammate Frankie Muniz put on his best qualifying effort at seventh, the team gathered on Sunday in the hopes of putting an exclamation mark on the weekend's activities for the Larry H. Miller Dealerships Utah Grand Prix at the Miller Motorsports Park.

Under another perfect Utah sun the Team Stargate Worlds drivers hit the grid preparing for a dogfight. The standing start was going to have to be perfect for Simona to take the lead going into turn #1 and as the green flag waved Simona launched herself into the first spot and never looked back. After turn #1 the second place of Jonathan Summerton went off track which opened up the second place to his Newman Wachs Racing teammate Jonathan Edwards . But Simona was well ahead of the field. By lap #5 De Silvestro had put a 5 second gap between her and Edwards and didn't let up. With every lap she hammered down and built her lead in dominating fashion. Her lead was up by 8.6 seconds by lap #15. For the duration of the race De Silvestro executed razor sharp laps and by the end of the race her dominant lead had grown to over 11 seconds. She would end up taking the checkered flag in first capping off a weekend where she led every session. This is the first time in professional open wheel motorsports a woman has won a race after leading every session and winning the pole.

Her Team Stargate Worlds teammate Frankie Muniz also had an incredible race. After starting the race in seventh, he shot to fifth place and spent the majority of the race behind rookie Borja Garcia. Muniz spent most of the race trying to set up Garcia for the pass for the fourth spot. On lap #47 Frankie made the move only to be hit by Garcia. Although he lost 2 spots as a result the Scottsdale resident kept his cool and on the final lap he again attempted to set up Garcia for the pass only to have Garcia and reigning Atlantic champion Marcus Niemela get together at turn #1. Muniz scooted past and took the fourth spot where he would end up finishing. This was Frankie's best race finish in his career.

Frankie Muniz: “Ive never been happier in my racing career! The Team Stargate Worlds team worked really hard this weekend and I'm happy for them as well. I'm just real ecstatic especially since I have really been working for this for the past 2 years. I think I proved that I belong in this series, amongst the best drivers in the world.”

Simona De Silvestro: “I'm so happy. This was such a good weekend. Beginning with the first practice session the car was great and now with a win, I am very happy. My thanks go out to the sponsors who have supported us and thanks to the Team Stargate Worlds crew who gave me a great car. I'm looking forward to New Jersey where my engineer Burke had great success last year and we'll take the momentum from this race.”

Imran Safiulla and Shane Seneviratne, Principals of Team Stargate Worlds- “This is our maiden win as partners. We are are very proud of the job the entire crew has done over the last few weeks, and specially this weekend. We can't say enough about Simona and Frankie's effort here. We think we might have made history here with Simona leading every session of the weekend and winning the race from flag to flag. We would like to sincerely thank all our sponsors for their extended support and belief in our program..”