Hunter-Reay's Milwaukee win

Hunter-Reay never looked in danger of losing the lead and his cause was aided further by the retirements of frontrunners Sebastien Bourdais and Paul Tracy who both crashed out.

"What a day!," said Hunter-Reay afterwards. "It was a tough battle with all the traffic, I couldn't relax one second. It was a great team effort. We stayed sharp all night long, had excellent pit stops, and a great car set-up."

Having taken his first pole position on the one-mile Milwaukee oval Hunter-Reay rocketed away at the start and quickly pulled out a lead. By the time Bourdais hit the wall on lap 50, the Herdez driver was 20s clear of the field.

Tracy was eliminated at the restart as he tried to pass Forsythe team-mate Carpentier at Turn Two. The reigning champion ran wide onto the marbles and hit the wall.

Hunter-Reay immediately pulled away when the pace car pulled in and Carpentier was left to defend his second place from a hard-charging Jourdain who had fought his RuSport Lola up from ninth on the grid.

"I tried really hard to catch Ryan," said Carpentier, "but it was almost impossible because he had an excellent car. We had a good car and a clean race. I figured that I would have to settle for second when I knew that I wouldn't be able to catch Ryan.

PKV Racing's Jimmy Vasser finished fourth ahead of impressive rookie AJ Allmendinger in the second RuSport car. Newman/Haas Racing's Bruno Junqueira had a quiet race by his standards coming home a distant sixth, but that was enough to give a one-point championship lead over Carpentier.

British Champ Car rookie Justin Wilson had a difficult weekend. Driving a Reynard instead of his normal Conquest Lola, he qualified 12th, but broke his front wing on the first lap when he brushed the wall. He then lost a couple of laps having it changed. He eventually finished 11th.