Steadiness Pays Off for Millen and Muniz

If ever there was a Toyota Pro/Celebrity race that should have been a foregone conclusion, it was Saturday’s at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Pole-sitter Ingo Rademacher not only qualified faster than his celebrity peers, he was even faster than the professionals. And Rademacher knew it.

“We were sitting there [in a drivers meeting], going that he must have a really good makeup guy,” said Rhys Millen, a three-time winner at the Pikes Peak Hillclimb, “because his head still looks normal size.”

Rademacher showed an affinity for racing but never led anything but a pace lap.

He hit the tire wall in Turn 1 of the first lap, opening the door for Millen to win the pro race and Frankie Muniz, the 19-year-old star of “Malcom in the Middle,” to win among celebrities. In between was Ryan Arciero, a three-time Baja 1000 winner.

“The easy thing would have been to go out and run a clean race, but it would have been boring,” Rademacher said. “I passed almost everybody. It was a real fun race.”

Driving identically prepared Toyota Celicas, Millen took the lead from Olympic swimmer Aaron Peirsol on the seventh of 10 laps around the 11-turn, 1.97-mile layout.

Millen, who also competes in Formula Drift, took considerable ribbing from his father, off-road and Pikes Peak legend Rod Millen, for failing to qualify as fast as Rademacher. It was a different story in the race.

“I qualified at a speed I could race at,” said Millen, who was making his road racing debut.

“I enjoy controlling a car sliding, and we’ve had a little bit of side-by-side action in the drifting,” Millen said, “but to run in a group and hunt someone down is a brilliant feeling.”

Rademacher still may have had the drive of the day. After collecting himself from the tire wall, he rejoined the race directly in front of the pros, who started 30 seconds behind.

The “General Hospital” star picked his way through the field to third place overall and was making an inside move on Peirsol for celebrity bragging rights on Turn 8 of the last lap. But then ...

“They both locked up and went straight into the wall,” said Muniz, who tiptoed past for the victory.

Last year, Muniz was in second place when he spun on the final lap. An avid race fan, Muniz called the victory one of his greatest accomplishments and said he hoped to get more serious about it.

Rademacher took fourth and Peirsol fifth.

“He showed a very good sense of feel and natural ability,” Millen said of Rademacher. “In testing, he would get behind you and you couldn’t shake him, but you could get behind him and force him to make mistakes two or three times a lap.

“It would have been interesting to run right with him on a competitive level.”

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A.J. Allmendinger’s yellow Lola has BEIJING ’06 on its sides and Chinese writing on the wing to draw attention to the latest addition to Champ Car’s foreign schedule. With races this year in Mexico (twice), Canada (three times), Korea and Australia, next year’s schedule will include one in Beijing.

“Adding an exciting new event in China to go with races in Korea and Australia solidifies our presence in a very important region,” said series co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven.

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Paul Tracy’s pole-qualifying speed of 104.983 mph broke the existing track record of 104.969 mph set by Gil de Ferran in 2000.

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Boris Said won the pole for today’s season-opening Cytomax Challenge Trans-Am race with an lap of 85.974 mph in his Ford Mustang. Tomy Drissi qualified second, ahead of teammate and team owner Paul Gentilozzi in Jaguars.

Said will start fifth today because of Fast Five Qualifying, which inverts the top five spots.

“The inversion this year adds a new twist,” Said said. “We talked about sandbagging a little bit, but that’s just not the way I race. I go as fast as I can no matter what.”

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Antoine Bessette, Andreas Wirth and Fernando Rees will start 1-2-3 in today’s Toyota Atlantic Championship.