Sebastien Bourdais returned from competing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in his hometown last weekend to strap back into the cockpit of his Newman-Haas Champ Car,  and had no problems adjusting as he dominated the weekend, taking the pole position on the way to his second win of the season. Bourdais, who won the 2003 Champ Car Rookie of the Year honors, raced for two seasons in the French Formula Renault Championship before moving up to F3 and then winning the F3000 title in 2002. Bourdais led 85 of the 94 laps in Portland, and was able to withstand a late-race charge from his teammate Bruno Junquiera.“I knew that Bruno would have a shot to catch me at the end when he put on a set of the alternate tires because those tires were so fast and I had the primary tires on because I used up my alternate tires,” Bourdais said. “However, we were able to pull it off. "Atlantics The Portland race weekend also featured an Atlantics double-race weekend, with former Formula Renault racers Ryan Dalziel and Andrew Ranger both netting podium finishes.   Dalziel won the event in 2003, but was only able to muster a best of second during the weekend as he team struggled to come to grips with the unusually warm conditions during the weekend.“We've had some bad luck,” Dalziel said. “We didn't have a car to challenge with to start the weekend. It's a testament to the team that we were able to come up to second today. We came back (to Portland) with the same car as last year when we dominated. The car was absolute crap on Friday. To come back as close to Jon as we did was awesome."Dalziel is now third in the championship, fifteen points behind the leader, with fellow Formula Renault grad and series rookie Ranger just two points behind him in the championship and leading in the rookie category among a very talented crop of first-year drivers.Long wins Le Mans in first tryPatrick Long, who competed in the 2002 British Formula Renault Championship before being tapped for the factory Porsche team in 2003, marked his Le Mans debut with a win in the GT class in a 911 GT3 RSR. Long returned from the endurance  event to participate in this weekends Porsche Michelin Supercup event run in conjunction with the United States Grand Prix, and was still a bit awed by his experience at the famed endurance event.

“Just participating at Le Mans is an experience every race driver should have,” Long said. “Everyone from the townspeople to the track officials treat the drivers like kings, and the effort the White Lightning team put in to overcome some of our mechanical problems made the win really special,” he said.

The Formula Renault V6 Championship is the top rung on the North American Formula Renault Championship ladder, which also includes the North American Formula Renault 1600 Championship and the North American Formula Renault 2000 Championship. The Formula Renault V6 is expected to make its North American competition debut in the latter stages of the2004 North American Formula Renault 2000 season.The series will meet again for round four of the championship as part of the Champ Car Molson Indy Toronto event on the weekend of July 9-11.