Petersen/ White Lightning To Start Fifth in GT at New England Grand Prix

LAKEVILLE, Conn., July 3, 2004 � Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing will start fifth in GT class for Monday's New England Grand Prix. David Murry, Cumming, Ga., piloted the No. 31 Westward Ho Casino/ MMPIE/ PAWS/ Michelin Porsche 911 GT3 RSR to a lap of 55.117 seconds around the 1.54-mile Lime Rock Park facility. Qualifying for the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) GT class was a stunning battle between eight cars, seven of which were Porsche 911 GT3 RSRs, resulting in a separation of less than one second from pole position to eighth. Murry's time in the Michael Petersen-owned Porsche was the team's fastest of the weekend in a qualifying session delayed approximately 45-minutes for track repairs. Following the completion of his hot lap�which at the time had the Le Mans GT-winning machine third in class� Murry pitted to save the Michelin tires for the start of the two-hour, 45-minute race. Murry will take the green flag for the New England Grand Prix at 3 pm (EDT) on Monday, July 5th, handing the wheel over to Craig Stanton, of Long Beach, Calif., at the race's mid-point. The third-round of the ALMS will be televised live on SPEED. There will be no on-track activity tomorrow. The Petersen/ White Lightning effort is currently tied for the GT class IMSA Cup privateer points lead while Murry and Stanton are tied for third in driver points. Porsche and Michelin each have handsome leads in the manufacturer battles.Dale White, team manager: “We don't spend a great deal of time focusing on a qualifying set-up and we are still fine-tuning the race set-up. So, we'll be there on Monday. The difference between P1 and P8 of less than a second really shows the class of the GT field. This is the stiffest competition any of us have faced in the GT class. We're really enjoying it.”David Murry: “I qualified fifth here at Lime Rock and Craig will start qualifying at Infineon [Raceway, Sonoma, Calif.]. We're less than 2/10ths from second-place and a half-second off the pole position. Fifth place may be an omen for us. This is where we qualified at Mid-Ohio and we raced up to take a third there. The Petersen/ White Lightning crew is really working very hard and we're closing on this. The car should be great for Monday.”Craig Stanton: “David did a great job out there today. We've been sneaking-up on the set-up and I think we really have something now. We'll be good for the race. This whole Petersen/ White Lightning team comes to these weekends for race day and that's when we'll start to show our hand.”For more, please visit www.petersenmotorsports.com. ###