PORTENGA WINS INAUGURAL RACE AT IRWINDALE

SANTA ROSA, California -- 1998 NASCAR Southwest Series Champion Steve Portenga drove the #3 Golden Gate Roto Rooter Chevrolet to his first Winston West victory last night in one of the most exciting races of the 1999 NASCAR Winston West season. The 250 lap main event required tough strategy and skilled maneuvering from all competitors, but Portenga edged into a last lap shoot-out with NASCAR Craftman Truck Series regular Bill Sedgwick for the win. "We had a terrific car all night," commented Portenga, "I was able to get through traffic pretty easy and run my own line out front. We tried to be as conservative as possible with tire wear and at the end, I was able to let her go," he added.

This was the first victory for owner Jim Offenbach's Golden Gate Roto Rooter Race Team and Steve Portenga has now moved into the Top 3 in the series point standings. With the addition of veteran Winston Cup crew chief Jerry Pitts, Team Portenga feels confident about the rest of the season. "Realistically, this year is about building a strong program," said Portenga. "It sure feels good to get that first win and we are focusing on maintaining the same effort for the rest of the season that put us into victory lane last night."

With a solid performance at Irwindale, Golden Gate Roto Rooter Race Team plans to carry this momentum into this next weekend as Steve Portenga will make his Winston Cup debut at Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, California. A strong road course competitor, Portenga has several races under his belt at Sears Point, including NASCAR Southwest Series and Craftsman Truck competition. The 28 year old driver led many laps at last year's Southwest Series event in Sonoma and later in the season edged out veteran road racer Mark Martin for a victory in the Los Angeles Street Race. This year's race will be aired live from Sonoma and fans can catch the action on espn2 at 12:00 PST.

The next NASCAR Winston West competition will be the Coors Light 200 in Monroe, Washington on July 18. For more information on Steve's exciting career, please contact www.Jps.net/race14\ or sponsor website www.rotorooter.com.