Early accident puts Team Target out of the race at Michigan

Contact: Nealie Hamilton, Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, cell: (704) 500-6068, nhamilton@ganassi.com

For Immediate Release

BROOKLYN, Mich. (August 17, 2003) --- Casey Mears was enjoying a productive weekend during his second visit to Michigan International Speedway. He qualified 16th in his Target Dodge for Sunday's Winston Cup race and he finished seventh in his Tylenol Dodge in the Busch Series race on Saturday. Unfortunately, it all came to a halt on lap 78 of the GFS Marketplace 400 on Sunday.

Just before the halfway point of the race, Mears was involved in an accident with the No. 32 of Ricky Craven. Mears was racing in 30th position at the time but had made it up to race in the top-15 for the first portion of the race.

"I'm fine," Mears said after exiting the infield care center. "The 32 (Ricky Craven) just got out of shape. I tried to go low but I couldn't go low. I was turning as hard as I could and I was going to run right into the back of him so I had to try to go high. About that time he had kind of got a hold of it and tried to go high to get out of everybody's way and I hit him."

"If it isn't one thing it's another," Mears continued. "We've just got to have a clean race, that's all we need. We need one clean race to kind of show what we can do. We were going back and forth on the setup there. We were real tight at the beginning, got real loose after the first pit stop, fixed it and looked like we were going to be pretty good. We just needed to get some track position and the 32 messed up and we ended up getting caught in it."

Team Target was left with a 41st place finish in the GFS Marketplace 400 and remains 34th in the championship points standings. Mears teammates Sterling Marlin and Jamie McMurray finished 19th and 41st respectively.

Team Target races at Bristol Motor Speedway next weekend. The Sharpie 500 will be broadcast live on TNT television and PRN radio on Saturday, August 23rd.

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Nealie Hamilton
Media Relations
Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates
office: (704) 662-9642 x1130
cell: (704) 500-6068
nhamilton@ganassi.com