Petersen/ White Lightning To Launch Mid-Ohio GT Bid from Top-Five

LEXINGTON, Oh., June 26 2004 � Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing returned to the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) this weekend for the American Le Mans at Mid-Ohio. The No. 31 Westward Ho Casino/ MMPIE/ PAWS/ Michelin Porsche driven by David Murry, of Cumming, Ga., and Craig Stanton, Long Beach, Calif., qualified fifth in the GT class. Murry lapped the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR around the 2.258 mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Complex in one minute, 23.728 seconds for tomorrow's two hour, 45-minute endurance sports car race. Murry will start the event at 1 pm (EDT) before turning driving duties over to Stanton who will finish the race. The Michael Petersen-owned, Dale White-managed team is fresh off its second 24 Hours of Le Mans GT win and returns to the ALMS to pursue the driver, team and manufacturer class titles. The Las Vegas-based team opened the season with a third in class at the 12 Hours of Sebring in March before traveling to France to take the GT title there. The race will be broadcast on CBS at 2pm (EDT). Live timing and scoring can be followed at www.americanlemans.com.Mike Petersen, team owner/ driver: “With such a short track time format we didn't get the car where we wanted. We finally got the car pinpointed in qualifying. We're happy with that but not ultimately satisfied. We feel the race setup for the car is very competitive. David did a good job qualifying the car and I know the car has more speed in it. If all goes well we'll be on the podium enjoying a victory.”David Murry: “We're really pretty happy today. We qualified fifth which doesn't sound as impressive as it is. I'll start tomorrow and Craig will play clean-up batter and I think we'll have a great race in the Petersen/ White Lightning Porsche.”Craig Stanton: “It's been a stressful week but we've come-up with a lot of good setup changes that are really going to propel us down the road for the rest of the season. We're trying to gain our footing with this new Porsche. We're really excited. David did a great job in qualifying and it's going to be a great race tomorrow. I want to thank all the fans and thank the Petersen/ White Lightning team for doing such a great job.” ###