The Frenchman, who will move to Formula One in 2008, had failed to win on the 4.028-mile, 14-turn natural terrain road course in three previous tries, despite being dominant at times. But he closed the deal in today's Generac Grand Prix, starting from the pole and overpowering the rest of the 17-car field in picking up his fifth win of the season.

After doing some smoking burnouts in celebration, a smiling Bourdais hugged just about everybody on his team after scrambling from his No. 1 Panoz.

"It was just about a perfect weekend and a great car," said Bourdais, who blew away the competition in qualifying, winning the pole by more than 1.5 seconds, before leading 51 of 53 laps in the 1-hour, 40-minute timed race.

"It was pretty frustrating (here) from time to time, but today was a great race," he added.

"I know Sebastien wanted to win Elkhart Lake really, really bad before he leaves the United States," said Craig Hampson, Bourdais' crew chief at Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing.

After months of speculation, Bourdais said Friday would join F1's Scuderia Toro Rosso team in 2008.

"I think things are better now," Hampson said. "It's been a distraction for Sebastien, definitely. Now it's lifted off his shoulders and he is going to be able to just concentrate on going fast."

Rookie Robert Doornbos and second-year driver Will Power, his closest pursuers in the championship, both ran into trouble, allowing Bourdais to move out to a 37-point margin with only five races remaining.

Doornbos came into the race second in the standings, 12 points behind Bourdais. He started third but fell far back after a collision with Minardi USA teammate Dan Clarke knocked off his front wing and cost him a long pit stop. That led to a 14th-place finish, four laps off the pace.

Power started second but wound up 16th after his transmission froze up after 25 laps. He remained third in the standings but now trails Bourdais by 53 points.

"I'll just keep soldiering on," he said. "This is a new car and we keeping finding things all the time. Unfortunately, we found it this time in the race. It got stuck in fourth (gear)."

Clarke's car was not damaged in the collision and he was able to hold off rookie Graham Rahal, Bourdais' teammate, to earn a career-best second-place finish. It was Clarke's third top-10 of the season and first top-five finish of 2007.

Behind Rahal, the son of longtime racing star Bobby Rahal, were Oriol Servia, 2004 Road America winner Alex Tagliani and Jan Heylen.

The biggest accident of the race came on turn five of the first lap when Paul Tracy and rookies Simon Pagenaud and Ryan Dalziel came together as Pagenaud tried to go three-wide. All three were able to continue after pitting, with Pagenaud finishing 11th and Tracy 12th.

Dalziel, who was coming back after missing a race with a broken collarbone sustained in a biking accident, wound up last because of a hole in his radiator.