Team News
Heading to the Irish Hills of Michigan
June 9, 2010
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Race: HELUVA GOOD! SOUR CREAM DIPS 400 on Sunday, June 13
Track: Michigan International Speedway (2.0-mile oval)
Location: Brooklyn, Mich.
NOTES
Jamie McMurray and No. 1GE Reveal® Team
Return to the Irish Hills of Michigan: Jamie McMurray will be making his 15th career NSCS start at Michigan this weekend when he takes the green flag in his No. 1 GE Reveal® Chevrolet. McMurray’s best NSCS start and subsequent finish came during the second Michigan race in 2004 when he started 15th and finished fourth. McMurray has one top-five and four top-10s at the Brooklyn, Michigan oval.
Last Weekend: Jamie McMurray and the No.1 McDonald’s Team looked to build on their recent success, which included three second-place finishes in the last five races, prior to Pocono. McMurray, who had finished second at some of NASCAR’s toughest and most historic venues in the previous five races (Talladega, Darlington and Charlotte) looked to continue his climb towards the coveted 12th position in the NSCS point’s standings, the cutoff for the chase. This climb would be put on hold at Pocono, as he was run up the track by the No. 6 car and into the wall. The hit damaged his No.1 McDonald’s Chevrolet enough to send the driver to the garage, with just 30 laps remaining, and the team wouldn’t have enough time to fix their damaged machine, settling for a 36th-place finish.
In the Points: McMurray and the No. 1 Team lost three positions after their 36th place finish at Pocono falling from 15th to 18th. He is currently trailing 12th place by 110 points, and point leader Kevin Harvick by 487 points.
GE Reveal® on the Car: Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates and GE Lighting recently announced that the GE Reveal® Light Bulbs brand will be the primary sponsor on the No. 1 Chevrolet, driven by 2010 Daytona 500 Champion, Jamie McMurray at this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race at Michigan International Speedway. In conjunction with GE’s paint scheme on the No.1 Chevrolet, GE will also provide Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates and Target Chip Ganassi Racing with new lighting fixture and bulb technologies for installation in their Concord, N.C. and Indianapolis, Ind. facilities.
The No. 1 Chevrolet Impala SS’s bright blue design draws inspiration from the blue coloring of an unlit GE Reveal® light bulb. Race fans should be sure to look for the iconic GE script logo on the hood of the No. 1 Chevy along with the rainbow-hued logo of GE Reveal® running down the car’s quarter panels.
Driving Energy Efficiency: With the obvious benefits of reducing energy costs, maintenance costs, quality of light, visibility, and operating costs, updating their lighting will also help Earnhardt Ganassi Racing and Target Chip Ganassi Racing curb the environmental impact of their facilities. By replacing all lighting fixtures and bulbs with the newest in energy efficient lighting technology from GE, Earnhardt Ganassi Racing and Target Chip Ganassi Racing will help protect the environment.
About GE: GE Consumer & Industrial spans the globe as an industry leader in major appliances, lighting and integrated industrial equipment, systems and services. Providing solutions for commercial, industrial and residential use in more than 100 countries, GE Consumer & Industrial uses innovative technologies and ecomaginationSM, a GE initiative to aggressively bring to market new technologies that help customers and consumers meet pressing environmental challenges, to deliver comfort, convenience and electrical protection and control. General Electric (NYSE: GE), imagination at work, sells products under the Monogram®, Profile™, GE®, Hotpoint®, SmartWater™, Reveal® and Energy Smart® consumer brands, and Entellisys®, Tetra®, Vio™ and Immersion® commercial brands. For more information, consumers may visit www.ge.com.
Juan Pablo Montoya and No. 42 Target Team
Michigan History: Montoya has made six NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts at Michigan International Speedway. His average start is 18th and average finish is 26th. Montoya’s best race at the two-mile track came in this event last season when he qualified seventh and came home with a sixth- place finish. Montoya also completed all laps (400) raced in 2009 at the track.
Did You Know?: Juan Pablo Montoya is no stranger to success at Michigan International Speedway. He competed at the two-mile oval in the CART Series in 1999 where he started third, led for 28 laps and finished on the podium in second place. In the July 2000 CART race he drove to Victory Lane for Chip Ganassi Racing. Montoya started the race from the seventh position and led 39 laps before taking the checkered flag.
Last Weekend: Juan Pablo Montoya and the Target team were able to rebound and pull out a top-10 finish last Sunday in Pocono. The team overcame a rain delay, concerns about handling, and a pit road penalty to come back with a solid eighth-place finish. The top-10 finish marked the seventh of the season for the Target team.
2010 in the Numbers: The eighth-place finish at Pocono marked Montoya’s seventh top-10 finish of the 2010 season. To date Montoya and the Target team have four top-five and seven top-10 finishes in 14 races this season. He has an average starting spot of 14th and finishing position of 20th. Last year, Montoya amassed only seven top-five finishes throughout the entire 2009 season.
Michigan Native: Michigan International Speedway marks a homecoming for front-tire carrier Eric Bilyeu. Bilyeu, a native of Waterford, Mich., grew up approximately 80 miles from the track. He attended college and played Hockey at the University of Alabama-Huntsville. Bilyeu got his start in NASCAR five years ago after reading a story in NASCAR Scene about the Ganassi Racing pit crews. He sent in a resume and became one of the first members of the team’s pit crew development program.
Target Commits to Learning: To help combat child hunger and its threat to K-12 education and impact on learning, this year Target is making a financial commitment of $2.3 million to Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief organization, and local hunger organizations to fund a school food pantry pilot program and its future expansion to more schools nationwide. In addition, Target is committing $1.2 million on top of the $2.3 million, to local food banks across the country to support other school-based food programs. The company also is projected to donate more than 20 million pounds of food to children and families in need in 2010.
CHASSIS INFO
No. 1 GE Reveal (NSCS): Chassis #1004. Crew Chief Kevin “Bono” Manion has elected to bring Chassis #1004 to Michigan International Speedway this weekend. This chassis was last used at Texas Motor Speedway where McMurray started 15th and finished 30th after being caught in a nine-car on-track incident.
No. 42 Target Chevrolet (NSCS): Chassis #1015. Crew Chief Brian Pattie will bring a brand new Chassis #1015 to Michigan International Speedway.
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