Niemela Finishes Day With Another Top 5 Performance

Tooele, May 15, 2009: Current Cooper Tire Atlantic Powered By Mazda Champion Markus Niemela finished his second practice session at Miller Motorspors Park, with a series of quick laps that produced a best time of 1:37.626 (112.396 mph). The performance placed him 4th on the final speed charts in preparation for tomorrow's Larry H. Miller Dealerships Atlantic qualifying.

The young Finn's pace picked up considerably compared with his morning session, as he and his NWR refined their Swift's 016 package. Nonetheless, he was fairly quick right out of the box, producing an initial fast time of 1:38:250.

"Today was good," Markus said, "the car is getting stronger and my team is really doing a great job. Their work on the package between the sessions allowed us to quickly find more speed, and picking up almost seven-tenths immediately was was due to their hard work. More than that, however, we know the car has more to offer so, as a group, we're definitely looking forward to qualifying."

Tomorrow's one-hour qualifying session will begin at 10:40a MTN with the race set for 11:40a MTN Sunday. All sessions will offer real-time timing and scoring. To follow the action go to: Atlantic Qualifying.

About Markus

Markus Niemela was born and raised in Rauma Finland in 1984. His racing career started in Karts at the age of five. After winning several FIA-KF1 (formerly Formula A) Karting championships in Finland and in greater Europe, he moved up to Formula Ford in 2004, subsequently winning the Finnish Championship, the Swedish Championship, and the STCC Formula Ford championship, finishing the season second in total International Formula Ford points.In 2005, he moved up to the UK Formula Renault Winter Championship after an abortive run in Formula BMW-ADAC with Team Rosberg, averaging 3rd in qualifying for the season, with one win, and one pole

In 2006 he moved to Formula Renault UK with Mark Burdett Motorsports. There he produced one win, one fastest lap, one pole, won multiple “driver of the day” awards and finished 7th in the Championship.In 2007 he campaigned in GP2 with BCN Competition, Formula Renault Eurocup with BVM Minardi, and also ran in the Asian Formula Renault Championship with March 3 Racing. In 2008 he came to the U.S. to run in the Cooper Tire Atlantic Championship Powered By Mazda Series with Brooks Associated Racing, where he subsequently won the 2008 Atlantic Championship.

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About Our Sponsors

Markus' 2009 campaign is sponsored by: Nuclear Energy, Entergy, NEI, Mr. Jones, Kivikylanan, Proholma, Party Camp, Rauma, Turku Karting, and PRRACEwire.

To contact Markus Niemela Press Relations: business@prracewire.com