As the green flag dropped on the race, Malcolm fell in line diving into the infield and tried to keep 2nd place within striking distance. After the first few laps, the gap to second place in class stopped increasing and started to creep back down. However, nine laps into the race, Malcolm ran into mechanical problems as he tried to shift into 5th gear on the Auto Club Speedway oval. After a few turns the team realized that the clutch was 'gone' and for the remainder of the race Malcolm could only shift gears by engine rev matching. The team still held on and finished 3rd in class, Performance Touring - PTD, and 27th overall with a fast lap of 2:01.2.

Sunday Report (3.29.09):
The Sunday report starts with more from Saturday afternoon/evening. After coasting back to the pits after the Saturday race, the team got to work in repairing the Enterprise Automation/Malcolm-Racing Nissan Sentra SE-R. The clutch disc was brand new, so the team did not bring a spare disc to the track this weekend. However, since the event was at Auto Club Speedway, the track was only about 45 minutes away from the Malcolm-Racing home base and one of our crew quickly left to pick up the spare clutch disc. Starting at just after 3:00 in the afternoon, the team proceeded to drop the transmission - jack up the car, remove front tires, drain gear oil, pull half shafts, support engine with jack, remove transmission bolts and supports, and lower the transmission to the ground. After removing the pressure plate, the team immediately saw the problem with the clutch disc. The friction material had actually separated from the disc in almost one single piece. With a little over an hour break, the team had the car back on the ground just before 8:00 PM and good to go for Sunday.

Malcolm eased the car back into competition on Sunday and qualified with slower time of 2:01.3, 3rd in class, and 20th out of 41 cars overall. As the green flag fell on Sunday, Malcolm got a great jump and more than made up for the slower qualifying time by going 4 wide down the main straight and diving into the infield after passing half a dozen cars. After a couple of upper classed cars got back around Malcolm, he began battling a PTC Mini which continued for the rest of the race. After a couple of looks Malcolm finished just behind the Mini as the team finished 3rd in class, Performance Touring - PTD, and 8th overall with a fast lap of 2:00.5.