In the final round, the mind games continued as each man took his time rolling into the staging beams.

As the lights turned green, Gahm's Mustang took an almost immediate turn to the right and it was over. Kirk motored on through the eighth mile for an easy win, scoring his first Minuteman with a convincing 4.165/175.25 pass.

"Brian and I are old friends and it's always great to beat him," said Kirk. "He's done it to me so many times before. It was nice to turn the tables on him."

Afterwards, Kirk said he was pleased with his first National Guard ADRL experience.

"This was just great," said Kirk. "The two-day program makes it a lot easier for us to get to the race and get home. And the crowds are just unbelievable. It's nice to come to the starting line and see the stands packed with so many people."

Gahm was smiling, but vowed revenge.

"We'll be at all the ADRL events this year," he said. "This is the best place to race. I had a lot of fun. I know I'll have several more opportunities to beat him (Kirk)."

An overflow crowd of over 50,000 passed through the turnstyles throughout the day, taxing the Houston Raceway Park facility's infrastructure to its limits. Shortly after 7:30 p.m. local time, after traffic had been backed up over three miles on the surrounding highways - forcing local law enforcement officials to close roads - HRP General Manager Seth Angel declared that the gates to the track would have to be closed and that those who were not already on the grounds would be turned away.

"I realize that there were still several thousand more race fans trying to get in, but my concern at the time was for those already here," said Angel. "This was undoubtedly the largest crowd we've ever had at Houston Raceway Park and I wanted to make sure that everyone here was safe, comfortable and enjoying the show."