Hearn Motorsports Returns to Road America, Site of '04 Podium
Hearn Motorsports Returns to Road America, Site of '04 Podium ELKHART LAKE, Wis., August 17, 2005 - Hearn Motorsports earned its highest career finish, second, at Road America's picturesque four-mile facility in 2004. This weekend, Riche Hearn (Henderson, Nev.), the IndyCar Series standout and owner of the two-car team, will bring his Las Vegas-based operation back to the Wisconsin facility for the ninth race of the Star Mazda Series North American Championship presented by Goodyear with a goal of bettering that. Back for his ninth race of the year is Brian Thienes (Huntington Beach, Calif.) in the No. 77 Thienes Engineering/ Hearn Motorsports Star Mazda while Rob Walker (Upland, Calif.) will wheel the No. 65 Hearn Motorsports Mazda for the second time this season. Despite several early season podiums with the No. 70 Hearn Motorsports entry- not entered this weekend- the team has yet to break onto the top-step of the podium. However, the next two events were strong performers for Hearn's effort in its rookie season last year. The 4.048-mile, 12-turn tree-lined track gave the No. 70 a fourth-place qualifying spot on the way to the second-place finish. That followed the team's first pole position and a third-place finish at Mosport International Raceway a year ago. With the two events swapped for '05, Hearn Motorsports feels confident in the team's opportunities for a return to early season-performance at the year's two fastest tracks. The first official practice for the Saturday's 45-minute race will come on Friday, August 19th at 7:45 AM (CDT). Qualifying will take place at 8 AM on Saturday. The race will be run at 3:45 PM on Saturday, August 20th. The SPEED television broadcast can be seen on September 18th at 2 PM (EDT). Richie Hearn, owner: "Road America is one of the great tracks that we race on. I think the whole team is looking forward to racing here. Brian [Thienes] has shown what he can do on the fast tracks so I think he'll have one of the best runs he's had all year. Road America should help him pick back up where he left off at Infineon. Rob [Walker] is looking good for this race too. I always enjoyed driving this track. It's a great driver's track. There are several places here that the driver can make a big difference in the lap time and there are some key sections that I can give the guys feedback. That helped a lot last year and we got our best finish here. One of the best things about this team is how we make progress over the weekend with Darrell [Soppe, engineer] setting-up the car and my input on lines. That gives us a lot of strength at a track like Road America or Mosport. We don't get stuck in one place all weekend which is real easy to do if you don't know how to keep moving forward." For more on Hearn Motorsports and its 2005 Pro Formula Mazda Series' effort please visit www.RichieHearn.com <http://www.richiehearn.com/> . More on Brian Thienes can be found at www.ThienesEngineering.com <http://www.thienesengineering.com/> . ### Digital images and complete bio information available upon request. Editors, please do not publish any contact information other than web sites. Thank you. Contact: Tom Moore, Hearn Motorsports, Inc.: 615-778-1614 (office), 615-509-5000 (cell), tom@darkhorsecom.com