Shane Lewis to Run Three Cars in Two Races at Mid-Ohio

 

 

LEXINGTON, Oh., August 4, 2004 - Shane Lewis will be busy this weekend
at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The Jupiter, Fla. resident will
continue his role as the lead driver of the No. 7 PAP-Parts/ Southard
Motorsports BMW-FABCAR Daytona Prototype in Saturday's premier Grand
American Rolex Sports Car Series' event, the Mid-Ohio Road Racing
Classic. He will also return as the lead driver of the Nuzzo Motorsports
Mini Cooper S in the Grand-Am Cup ST class on Sunday. While this is not
unusual for the two-time Grand-Am Cup class winner, what adds to his
workload this weekend is that he will race both the No. 20 Habberstad
Mini Nuzzo Mini Cooper and the No. 21 car. The move is not unprecedented
for Lewis. He has raced both the Minis earlier in 2004 and, in 2002,
Lewis drove to two-podium finishes at the Six Heures of Mont Tremblant
driving two different cars in two different classes. 

 

Further adding to the already hectic weekend will be the ongoing
development of the PAP-Parts BMW-FABCAR. Southard Motorsports' owner
Steve Southard has brought world-renowned racing engineer Ron Mathis to
help fine-tune the car. Mathis has worked with both Lewis and co-driver
Vic Rice in the past. Most successfully, Mathis was a part of the
Ferrari effort that Lewis led with at Le Mans in 2003. Mid-Ohio is also
the home track for Southard Motorsports magnifying Lewis' desire to put
on a good show for the hometown fans. 

 

Shane Lewis: "This is definitely going to be a busy weekend. We are
working at developing the PAP-Parts Daytona Prototype with Southard
Motorsports, I'll be starting one of the Nuzzo Minis and finishing in
the other plus this is the home track for the Southards. Fortunately, I
love this track. Mid-Ohio is really a driver's track. It requires more
out of you mentally and physically than a lot of tracks but that is what
I love about it. Unfortunately, all the things that make Mid-Ohio so
demanding are all the areas we're having trouble with in the Daytona
Prototype. We are continuing to develop the car to get the most out of
it. In fact, we were working so hard on the car that we had to skip a
test at VIR (Virginia International Raceway) that we would have liked to
have been at. Some of the other DPs have snuck around us and everyone at
Southard Motorsports is working very, very hard to close the gap. Steve
has brought on Ron for this weekend to help with the car. We've worked
great together in the past so I am confidant that we can make some major
progress this week. The whole team really wants to perform well
everywhere we go but Mid-Ohio is the team's home track. That puts a
little more importance on this weekend."