Hearn Motorsports Triple Threat to Attack Portland

PORTLAND, Ore., July 25, 2005 � Hearn Motorsports will field three cars in the Star Mazda Series North American Championship presented by Goodyear at Saturday's Grand Prix of Portland. The team owned by open wheel star Richie Hearn (Henderson, Nev.) opened the 2005 season with three cars in the top-fifteen at Sebring International Raceway and hopes to bring that level of competition at Portland International Raceway (PIR) this weekend. Since Sebring, the Las Vegas-based organization has operated with one to two cars keeping full-time driver Brian Thienes (Huntington Beach, Calif.) and the No. 77 Thienes Engineering/ Hearn Motorsports Star Mazda on track at each of the seven races held this season. Thienes will be joined by two new teammates at the 1.944-mile, 12-turn Portland road course. Making their debut appearances with Hearn Motorsports will be Jason Bowles (Ontario, California) in the No. 70 and Rob Walker who will pilot the No. 25 under the Hearn banner. Hearn took two of his three drivers to the Portland-area race course for a day of testing last week with strong results. Thienes, who will be celebrating his one-year anniversary as a driver of the Hearn No. 77, was among the quickest at the test that included several Star Mazda teams. Thienes is coming off a string of successful events including a front-row qualifying effort at the Series' only oval event at Pikes Peak International Raceway earlier this month and a fifth-place qualifying run at the most recent race at Infineon Raceway. Bowles comes to the Hearn team after running fourth in the 2004 Formula Ford Zetec driver championship. A highly successful kart driver in the “Stars of Tomorrow” Series, the 22 year-old has also enjoyed much success in formula cars including runs in the Zetec Series earlier this season. Walker will join the team for Portland and the Road America rounds in the No. 25. The first practice for the Saturday's 45-minute race will come on Thursday, July 28th. Qualifying will follow on Saturday after two practice sessions on Friday. The race will be run at 3:05 PM (PDT) on Saturday, July 30th. The SPEED television broadcast can be seen on August 27th at 1 PM (EDT). Richie Hearn, owner:About Brian Thienes: “I'm looking forward to running three cars again. We've had a lot of success in the past running multiple entries and that was the way I laid the team out from the start. We had a good test at Portland last week. Brian was one of the faster cars there. His confidence is real high right now, ever since Pikes Peak. He's pretty excited and we are for him. We're trying to keep his streak of good runs going. We want him to qualify and race well there. Portland isn't necessarily one of our better tracks but, if we can make it through with top-10s, I'll be pretty happy.” About Jason Bowles: “We've been talking for quite awhile. I've known Jason for a long time from karting in California. We'd like to give his career a little boost. He tested with us at Portland and it went OK. We had him running on old tires just to get used to the car and the track. It was about getting laps and he did very well. That should be a big help when we get to the track this week.”About Rob Walker: “We're going to run Rob here at Portland and at Road America. He has been out of a car for awhile and wasn't able to join us for the Portland test. So, we'll be a little more conservative at first.” For more on Hearn Motorsports and its 2005 Pro Formula Mazda Series' effort please visit www.RichieHearn.com. More on Brian Thienes can be found at www.ThienesEngineering.com. Jason Bowles official web site can be found at www.JasonBowles.com. ###