Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning Racing ALMS Winners At Road America

Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning Racing ALMS Winners At Road America

ELKHART LAKE, Wis., August 24, 2003 – Petersen Motorsports/ White Lightning
Racing won their first American Le Mans Series (ALMS) GT class event today
in the Road America 500. Starting fifth in class, Craig Stanton, of Long
Beach, Calif., took the No. 31 Westward Ho Casino/ MMPIE/ PAWS/ XtraJet/
Justice Brothers Porsche 911 GT3 RS up to second-place within the first 35
minutes of the two hour and 45 minute multi-class sports car event. Stanton
handed driving chores over to Johnny Mowlem of Warfield, England at the one
hour and 23 minute mark. Mowlem piloted the car into the lead less than 20
minutes later and held a one lap lead on the GT class 40 minutes after that.
Despite a late race pit stop for a splash of fuel and new Michelin tires,
Mowlem held the lead giving team owner Michael Petersen and Porsche
preparation expert Dale White their first ALMS victories. This also ranked
as Stanton’s first win but was the second for Mowlem. Mowlem’s first career
ALMS win came at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca— which is the next stop on the
ALMS circuit scheduled for September 7th— in 1999. Petersen/ White
Lightning, in cooperation with Alex Job Racing, won the 24 Hours of Le Mans
(a non-ALMS race) and finished second at the season opening 12 Hours of
Sebring.

“This has been a longtime coming,” commented Mowlem. “The whole team has
earned it. We don’t run all the races but we are always right there when we
do race. We got a little lost early in the weekend when we tried a new
differential in the car. However, we changed the diff back to the one that
Bob Wollek put in the car at Sebring in 2001. Maybe Bob was looking over us
today.”

Stanton was ecstatic about his first ALMS victory; “This is unbelievable. It
’ll probably sink in tomorrow on the plane. Winning in the ALMS is so tough,
especially in GT class. This means a lot to win here at Road America. This
track has so much heritage and so many great drivers have won here. It’s
pretty humbling to have my name on that list.”

“Anytime you can win at Road America, no matter how you do it, is a big
 win,” offered engineer Harry Haggard. “Road America is the best race track
in America.”

“We’ve been so close so many times,” reflected White. “We had absolutely no
trouble at all today and that it what it takes to win. We won our first
Trans-Am race here at Road America so this track has been good to us.
Everyone wanted this really bad. No one wants to win more than we do. We
come here to win so it has been frustrating getting so close at Petit (Le
Mans) last year and Sebring this year [the team finished second in both].
Now we can relax. It felt like we had a monkey on our back. This is a great
boost. A lot of these guys didn’t get to go to Le Mans and experience this
feeling.”

Michael Petersen, who has supported the ALMS since 1999, took great pride in
the win. “It means a lot because we’ve been together for such a long time.
It’s good to bounce back from what we consider a sub par performance (a
fifth in GT class) at Sonoma. We had hoped to carry the momentum from the Le
Mans win into the ALMS but it didn’t happen. Maybe now we have recaptured it
and we can carry it on to Laguna Seca. We definitely need to thank Michelin
for the great tires, Porsche North America, PAWS, MMPIE, XtraJet and
Westward Ho Casino. And, especially my Mom who has been behind this team
since the start.”

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.