Tagliani happy with finishing in one piece

Alex Tagliani was more excited than he ever could have imagined he'd be after not winning a race.

The Summerlin resident from Quebec finished fourth in the inaugural Vegas Grand Prix and led 11 of the 68 laps in the Champ Car World Series race.

"I am very happy with our overall results," he said of his team's performance in the series opener on the 2.44-mile, 12-turn street circuit downtown.

"We had little issues throughout the race, but we were able to finish in one piece."

He said the strategy of his RSPORTS Racing team was to pit early but the strategy forced him to make three stops while most teams only pitted twice.

"That ended up blocking us from a better finish," he said of ending the race nearly 49 seconds behind winner Will Powers of Australia.

"It's a great way to start the season."

* FLAT BOURDAIS -- The Las Vegas winning streak of three-time reigning series champion Sebastien Bourdais came to a crashing halt.

Literally.

After starting 16th in the 17-car field, he was plagued by two flat tires early before hitting a wall with his left-front tire on the 30th lap, which left him standing at a circuit run-off area until the race was completed.

"We've had the worst weekend I can ever remember," he said. "Just about anything that could go wrong went wrong."

Of the encounter with the wall, he said: "I'm not sure if we had a third puncture and brushed the wall and the tire went down. I don't know why I hit it because I didn't think I was that close."

Bourdais finished 13th for his Newman Haas Lanigan Racing team.

He won Champ Car races in 2004 and 2005 on the 1.5-mile tri-oval at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

* ATLANTIC SERIES -- Raphael Matos edged pole winner Robert Wickens to win the Champ Car Atlantic title in the final race of the day.

Matos beat the rookie by 0.160 seconds in a race marred by four yellow flags that allowed only five of 22 laps to be run under green-flag conditions.

The Brazilian native living in Florida drives for Sierra Sierra Racing of Minden. He is a part-time driving instructor for the Las Vegas-based Driver's Edge youth safe driving program.

* HISTORIC GRAND PRIX -- Bobby Rahal, the 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner, finished first in the 12-lap Historic Grand Prix driving a 1974 Brabham BT-44.

He won by 2.926 seconds over Dino Crescentini, who drove a 1983 Williams FW08C/7.

Rahal's day was much better than that of his son, Graham Rahal, 18, who crashed before getting to the starting line in the Champ Car race for his series debut when another car made contact with his.