Ara Malkhassian, of Houston, Texas, only led the 45-minute second round of the 2011 SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup Series at Road Atlanta for maybe last 15 seconds, but that's all it took to give the series' all-time starts leader his second career MX-5 Cup victory.

Driving the No. 11 ALARA Garage MX-5, Malkhassian found himself in a similar situation to one four years earlier at Road Atlanta, when he scored his first series victory with a pass on the final lap. He used that experience to his advantage approaching Turns 10a and 10b of the 12-turn circuit this afternoon when Justin Hall, of Davis, Calif., and Jason Saini, of Cresson, Texas, went side-by-side in a last-lap battle for the lead after battling each other for most of the race.

"When Jason popped a move onto Justin, it slows them both down tremendously," Malkhassian explained. "You probably drop 10 to 15 miles an hour going side-by-side through 10a and 10b. If you are third and you drop back far enough that you can accelerate up to them, at the point where the track widens again, you can just come right up the inside. I probably cleared them before I even crested the hill, there was that much difference in speed."

Coming down the hill into the circuit's 12th and final turn, Malkhassian cruised down the inside with Saini in the middle and Hall sliding through the grass and doing all he could to save himself from crashing. Malkhassian crossed the stripe 0.197 seconds ahead of Saini to get the win in a scenario that went exactly the way he hoped it would turn out.

"I got up to second and I could have passed for first against Justin, but really, honestly, these guys are so aggressive," Malkhassian said. "They are lead dogs. They want to lead all the time; I just want to win. I need to say a big thank you to ALARA Racing and to Ken Murillo, our crew chief, for giving us a great car," Malkhassian said.