O’CONNELL & SPEAKMAN 15TH AT LAGUNA SECA

ORANGE COUNTY, California -- O'Connell Racing (OConnellRacing.com), a southern California based Grand American Rolex Series and NASCAR road racing team announced a 15th place finish at Laguna Seca in the U.S. Sports Car Invitational this weekend in Monterrey, California. In what turned out to be a cool and at times overcast and foggy condition in the early mornings, gradually burned off in the afternoon to leave clear and sunny skies for practices and the race. O'Connell qualified the car 13th of 22 teams. At the completion of the first lap of the race O’Connell had moved from 13th to 10th position. O’Connell commented, “ The early laps of the race reminded my of NASCAR short track racing. It was door to door, nose to tail and I had half the car off in the dirt in 3 and 4. That is how we like to race!” O’Connell ran the first 10 laps when officials through a full course debris caution. Crew chief Barry O’Brien called the car into the pits to top off for fuel only and concurrently complying with Grand Am’s new 45 minute pit stop rule. O’Connell ran the next hour until another timely full course caution was called by officials and O’Connell brought the car in for fuel, tires and a driver change. Mike Speakman got into the car. During the pit stop the hose for Rick Toth’s air gun which was not secured during pit stop preparation came unplugged two times during the front and rear tire changes. The rear tire then jammed which took additional critical time to finally get secured. The stop took nearly 2 minutes, twice the time of a typical stop. The team dropped from 9th place to 16th place after the stop and went a lap down. During Speakman’s stint the caution flew again when a car went off and got stuck in the gravel traps. Like NASCAR, the first car behind the leader a lap down gets the “Lucky Dog” pass around the track and gets the lost lap back. Grand-Am officials called for the lucky dog pass and gave it to the #21 by mistake and not the #27. The race was quickly restarted and Speakman never got his pass or lap back. Crew chief Barry O’Brien stated, “Like my experiences in NASCAR Grand Am admitted their mistake but once the green flag came out again it’s “sorry” our mistake. You just have to deal with it. Kevin and Mike did a solid job this weekend and we will do a better job in the pits at The Glen.”

The team will be heading to Infineon Raceway in Northern California on June 5th to test the NASCAR Busch West car and to Watkins Glen New York for the 6 Hours of the Glen on June 8th and 9th, 2007 in the Rolex Series.

About O'Connell Racing: OCR is a California based road racing team that competes in North America in the Grand American Rolex Series and various NASCAR series. The team competes in select races in all of these respective series in an focused effort to bring the highest visibility and branding opportunities to its marketing partners currently managed by SpeedSport Branding, LLC: General Environmental Management, Inc., Taleo Grill, General Pacific Group, LLC, Direct TV--Satellite Superstore, Mothers Polishes-Waxes-Cleaners, Dragon Optical, Crow Enterprises, HPC Coatings, MicroFiberStuff.com, Neo Synthetics, Sparco USA, IMMS Inc., Wine Pavilion, StunningGuns.com, BASF and Arnett Designs.

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