Shane Lewis Looks Forward to Second Time Around at The Glen

JUPITER, Fla., August 11, 2004 � Shane Lewis is looking to make-up for lost opportunities as he revisits up-state New York this weekend for Friday's Sahlen's 200 at The Glen. The Jupiter, Fla. driver is making his second appearance of the season at Watkins Glen International in the No. 7 PAP-Parts/ AutoAssets BMW-FABCAR for Southard Motorsports. Most recently, the perennial sports car favorite drove at The Glen's 3.4-mile, 11-turn “Long Course” on June 20th. Then, Lewis' Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype (DP) was eliminated from the race when it was hit from behind in the opening laps of the event. He will now return to The Glen as part of the Nextel Cup weekend. Lewis, who competed in four different cars in two races during last week's Grand American weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, will again pilot the No. 7 BMW in the Rolex Series' top class at the 2.45-mile Watkins Glen “Short Course”. Shane Lewis(about the Sahlen's 200): “I always love coming up here to Watkins Glen. I've had a lot of success at this track. I've also had a lot of disappointment here. We had a pretty good car here last time around but, unfortunately, we never had the chance to show it. We were taken-out early by a bonehead move by one of my competitors. This time, if we can keep from getting punted from behind, we hope to show better. We still have a lot of work to do with the PAP-Parts BMW-FABCAR. We made our first big changes last week and we got closer. It was definitely a step in the right direction.”(about running more than one car in this week's race): “Well, right now I'm only planning to drive the PAP-Parts BMW but you never know what will happen. The No. 57 AutoAssets' Porsche [GT class sister car to the No. 7 DP] is running this weekend too so anything is possible. If you get me a strong-enough rental car I might roll that out there too. I just love to race and take every opportunity to do it. Four cars in two races last week was pretty hard work though.”(about the development progress of the No. 7): “We're making a lot of progress with the Daytona Prototype but we still have a lot of ground to catch-up to Riley's, Doran's and even the Brumos FABCARs. We got a later start in our development program than they did so the results haven't been where we want them yet. Steve and the whole Southard Motorsports team is putting so much effort into this program and we are making-up some ground. Just not as much, as fast as we would like. I don't know if we'll catch-up by the end of the season or not? We don't' have a lot of time left to do that. I can say every one of us at Southard Motorsports is putting every last bit of energy into making that happen.”For more on Shane Lewis please see www.shanelewis.com. To learn more about Southard Motorsports, please visit www.pap-parts.com or www.autoassets.com. ###