Navarro IV Ready to Rebound At Miller Motorsports Park

SALT LAKE CITY April 30, 2011: Rafael Navarro IV will run his second consecutive Pirelli World Challenge Championships race in the No. 01 Istook Motorsports Volkswagen GTI Turbo in the Touring Car (TC) class Saturday at Miller Motorsports Park where a rare “snow out” Friday forced qualifying to be cancelled.

After encouraging practice runs that saw Navarro clock in seventh quickest in the second session and eighth overall for the day, he will end up gridding 13th after the starting field was determined first by championship points and then by practice times. Navarro – who is known as “R4” – didn’t race in the season-opening event last month in St. Petersburg and lost not only points but a TC class victory after a relatively minor technical infraction led to a disqualification one race ago in Long Beach. Although R4 will be starting at least five places farther back than he likely would have qualified, he has the advantage of some experience at Miller despite being just 17-years-old.

“I'm excited to be back at Miller, I visited this state of the art venue last year with the Jetta TDI Cup when we ran on the east course,” Navarro said. “This weekend I will be running the full-course configuration, stepping up to the big leagues now, so I have to learn half of the track because I'm pretty familiar with half of it. The full-course configuration that we will be running is a 4.5 mile course which is by far one of the longest circuits I have ever run.”

Another plus for R4 has been his simulator time learning the Miller layout.

“I've been spending a lot of time training on the simulator for this weekend,” Navarro said. “This will definitely help me to learn the west part of the circuit much faster.”