Jeff Courtney in action at Miller Motorsports Park (Weber image).

The race followed some discouraging practice sessions and a disappointing 19th grid position. Courtney pointed to his new team engineer, John Mills, teammate Tommy Archer, crew chief Erik Messley and owner Bob Woodhouse, saying their direction helped make the difference from poor practices to an outstanding finish. Woodhouse didn"t want to take the credit.

"I know that Jeff is going to say it was the car,” Woodhouse said, “But it really has a lot to do with him. That is his modus operandi; he comes from behind and pulls it out in the end. He just chewed off one lap at a time.”

Courtney also set the fastest lap of the race, a 1:57.628, on lap 16.

“That’s another thing,” said Woodhouse. “He clocks in the fastest lap, not when the car is fresh, but in the 16th lap.”

It was Courtney’s first race on the newly configured track at Miller.

“It is a good Viper track,” Courtney said. “The outer ring runs fast and has some great high speed turns. It was a little slick out there, but I knew that going in. A few people made mistakes and we capitalized on them.”

Although going into the race at Miller Courtney had been happy with his eighth-place position in the 2008 Championship points race, he should grin at his rise to fifth. Courtney is now looking for his fourth consecutive top-ten finish at Watkins Glen June 5-8, and he hopes to continue climbing through the point standings and surpass last years’ seventh-place overall finish.

“Congratulations goes out to Bob, Tommy and the rest of the team on their outstanding weekend,” Courtney added.

Archer qualified in the pole position for Sunday’s race and raced strong to take the checkered flag. It was the first World Challenge win for Woodhouse Performance.

“It was an amazing weekend,” said Woodhouse.

To catch this exhilarating race, watch it on the SPEED, Wednesday, May 28, at 1:00 pm EDT.