Portland, OR (My Sportsbook) - A.J. Allmendinger, in his first race with Forsythe Championship Racing, captured Sunday's G.I. Joe's Grand Prix of Portland. The No.7 Lola driver crossed the finish line 5.420 seconds ahead of Justin Wilson.

The victory was Allmendinger's first career Champ Car Series win.

After winning his first pole of the season the Brazilian, Bruno Junqueira, led the 18-car field for 105 laps of racing.

The first few laps involved a lot of position changes. The Brazilian fell back to fourth after Allmendinger passed him for the lead. Also rookie Dan Clarke drove around the outside from sixth to second just past the start/finish line.

The No.7 Lola driver quickly created an impressive five-second margin over Clarke by lap 20. Battling behind these two drivers were Wilson (his close friend and former teammate), Junqueira and Paul Tracy.

On lap 32 Allmendinger led the leaders into the pits for the first stops of the afternoon. When the stops were complete Allmendinger maintained first position with Wilson in second. Bourdais, after falling to seventh earlier in the race, came out third on the grid.

The top-two drivers cruised around the track and created over a 17-second margin over the rest of the field. Allmendinger opened up over a six-second lead for himself over Wilson. But Wilson slowly started to cut into the large margin and eventually cut the lead in half.

By lap 60 lap traffic slowed down Allmendinger considerably cutting down his margin to one second. During the next lap Wilson came in for his second pit stop of the day. Two laps later Allmendinger came in for his pit stop.

After the stops had cycled through, Allmendinger still had the lead. Wilson followed close behind in second while Bourdais came out in the third spot.

The gap for the leader started to expand when it was reported that Wilson was having tire problems. That problem was a flat-spotted right-front tire. This forced Wilson to pit on lap 78 to repair the problem. Bourdais inherited second place with the Wilson pit stop. Wilson came out third on the grid after his stop.

The last round of pit stops for Allmendinger and Bourdais occurred on lap 85 and 86, respectively. Allmendinger came out of the pits with a seven-second lead over Wilson. Bourdais fell back to third place.

The No.7 Lola driver, the most dominant driver all day, maintained his seven second margin as the laps dwindled down. With only 10 laps remaining in the race Allmendinger still held over a nine-second lead.

It was clear that it was going to take some kind of miracle for someone besides Allmendinger to win the race.

There were no miracles on this day as Allmendinger cruised past the checkered flag after 105 laps of caution-free racing.

Wilson, Bourdais, Junqueira, and Cristiano da Matta completed the top-five.

For Allmendinger, who was fired by RuSport last week, got engaged at mid-week and hired by Forsythe Championship Racing, it was a storybook finish.

The next race in the series is set for Sunday, June 25th at the Burke Lakefront Airport.