Starting from the outside of the front row on the .626-mile O'Reilly Raceway Park oval, Conor Daly jumped into the lead on the opening lap and led the entire race by a substantial margin to score his third Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear victory in a row driving the Juncos Racing / INDECK / The College Network / Merchant Services Ltd. / Tom Lange Co. Mazda. Finishing second was polesitter Mikael Grenier of Quebec City, followed by Brazilian racer Joao Victor Horto and Texan Rusty Mitchell.
"It wasn't as easy at it looked, but O'Reilly Raceway Park has done a lot for my career tonight," said Indianapolis native Daly, who graudated from his local high school on May 14. "Anybody who thinks driving open-wheel cars in an oval race is easy has no idea what they are talking about. It's so easy to make a mistake, and so difficult not to make one. The Juncos Racing team has been doing a phenominal job and giving me great cars.
"I love ovals and the next race on June 19 with the IndyCar Series is Iowa Speedway. I qualified eighth there last year and finished second after an epic battle with Peter Dempsey, who is now working with the Juncos team and helping me with my season. I'm fortunate, like Rick Mears said, to 'be in the right place at the right time with the right people and equipment.' I like this feeling of winning, and I'm going to do my very best to keep on doing it."
Some drama was added to the race when four cars who qualified well were penalized and moved back on the starting grid due to technical infractions discovered in post-race inspections. The principal victims of this situation were French racer Tristan Vautier, who was moved back from the sharp end of the grid to 11th, and then worked his way back up to sixth. Scandinavian racer Anders Krohn was also dropped to 10th on the grid and finished fifth.
The heartbreak story of the race was young Venezuelan racer Carlos Linares, who surprised the big guns by setting the fastest time in Friday practice, and qualified his repaired car eighth on the grid only to find the wall in Turn 3 on lap 25 for the race's single full-course yellow, after looking very racy in the early stages.