Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing Accustomed To Life on Top

ELKHART LAKE, Wis., August 19, 2003 � Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing returns this weekend to the picturesque Road America circuit for its third event in the 2003 American Le Mans Series (ALMS) season. The No. 31 Westward Ho Casino/ MMPIE/ PAWS/ XtraJet/ Justice Brothers Porsche 911 GT3 RS is accustomed to performing well in the ALMS. The Michael Petersen-owned team has not finished outside of the top-five of GT class since Road America 2002. In fact, the Las Vegas-based race team has earned podium finishes in four of its last five events including the cooperative effort with Alex Job Racing which saw the team debut with a resounding victory at the 24 Heures Du Mans this year. The team has enjoyed a string of first and second place class finishes that included last season's Petit Le Mans, the 2003 12 Hours of Sebring season-opener and the French classic at Le Mans. In the past year the lowest finishing position for the team, which dates its ALMS participation to 1999, was their most recent outing at Infineon Raceway. Johnny Mowlem, of Warfield, England, and Craig Stanton, of Long Beach, Calif. finished fifth in that event. "As a team we have become very accustomed to success and, to be honest, we were a little disappointed with the result in California,” explained Mowlem. “However, the team has made several changes to the car since we left Sonoma, and although we still have to find this new car's sweet spot in terms of set-up, these changes will hopefully put us back up in a position to challenge the AJR cars, as we did in Sebring. Road America is a challenging circuit. It is very fast with quite a few technical areas, which should suit me! It is a lot of fun to drive and I'm sure we'll be having some good battles. As ever the GT class is the most competitive out there and I'm looking forward to running back at the front again."“We have had time to make our little tweaks on this new car and the new sprint motor from Porsche Motorsport North America will be nice as well,” recounted team manager Dale White. “We didn't have much time to modify the car prior to Sears but now we should have everything handled as usual for Road America.”The Road America 500 will broadcast live on SPEED Channel at 2 pm (EDT) Sunday, August 24th. Qualifying on the four mile track will be held on Saturday.Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing began operation in the late 1980s competing in off-road endurance events. The duo of Petersen and White joined to win over 50 off-road truck victories including three-consecutive overall wins at the Baja 1000 and Baja 500 and four SCORE, SNORE and SODA championships. Since introducing the team to sports car racing, the effort has scored victories in the Trans-Am Series, Speed Challenge Series and endurance sports car wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Watkins Glen and at the Rolex 24 of Daytona. For more, please visit www.PetersenMotorsports.com. ###