Source: O'Connell Racing
Date: 07/30/2007

ORANGE COUNTY, California -- O'Connell Racing (OConnellRacing.com), a southern California based Grand Am Rolex Series and NASCAR road racing team announced today that Direct TV -- Satellite Superstores will join the team on the 3rd of August as the primary marketing partner for the race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada. The Rolex Series will include the Daytona Prototypes and GT cars concurrently for the Friday race and the NASCAR Busch series on Saturday as both series co-headline for the weekend. Driver Michael Speakman will drive with Kevin O'Connell in the Direct TV Porsche 997.

Previously, in Utah for the Big O Tires 150, Crew Chief Barry O'Brien, Tech Director Roy Montgomery and Tire Specialist Rick Toth had to get the OCR NASCAR road race car back together for the upcoming race after significant damage to the car after Infineon. Roy Montgomery stated, " The Infineon car was our first choice for Miller and we had 7 days to repair the body, paint and letter the car and get it set up and back together for the Miller race." At the track located in Tooele, Utah, the team battled constant 100 degree heat and an ill handling race car. Driver Kevin O'Connell commented, " Coming off the high speed straights and into the first few turns of the track during Friday practice the car was extremely tight. We had to throw allot at the car to free it up and get it to a point where we could qualify the car and still be able to race it after impound." O'Connell qualified the car 14th and moved the car through the field during the first few laps of the race. An early caution caused the drivers to line up single file for a restart and created an opportunity for O'Connell to pass slower cars at the end of the front straight. O'Connell commented, " On the restart we were able to get past some cars that we held up by slower traffic. Heading into turn five I moved inside the #42 to pass and he evidently did not see me or tried to block me late and moved me into the dirt and off the track. I slid through the turn in the dirt sideways and took out the corner pilings and had hard contact with the #44 who was turning in for the corner. Our contact with the #44 got him into someone else and took them both out of the race. It was a bad situation and I hate to take any team out that had nothing to do with our incident. You just can't take for granted that some drivers are aware of the racing happening around them." After contact with the #44 and the subsequent caution the team moved as high as 7th place. O'Connell radioed into Barry O'Brien that the car was running 240/210 on the front straightaway. Seconds later, that communication was immediately followed by O'Connell notifying the team that the car has just blown its engine as fans were consumed by the huge plume of white smoke. The team ended a tough weekend 17th overall. The next NASCAR West road course race will be at California Speedway August 11th, 2007.

The team prepares for the Grand Am Rolex Series race in Montreal, Canada on August 3rd, 2007. The race will be broadcast the same day on SPEED.

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 Superstores, Mothers Polishes-Waxes-Cleaners, Dragon Optical, Crow Enterprises, HPC Coatings, MicroFiberStuff.com, Neo Synthetics, Sparco USA, IMMS Inc., StunningGuns.com, BASF and Arnett Designs.

See Also .:

• Kevin O'Connell Driver Card

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