Rocketsports Duo of Gentilozzi & Drissi Head to Familiar Ground

EAST LANSING, Mich. (April 5, 2006) With a long history of competing and winning on the legendary streets of Long Beach, the Rocketsports duo of Paul Gentilozzi and Tomy Drissi look forward to returning to Southern California for the Crown Royal Grand American Challenge of Long Beach. The Grand American Rolex Road Racing Series Presented by Crown Royal Premium Select will hold a 90-minute “sprint” race as part of the 32nd Annual Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Both drivers have visited victory circle in the Trans-Am series at the famous circuit. Gentilozzi hold a record five victories while Drissi captured his first Trans-Am series win in 2000.

Gentilozzi first hit the street of Long Beach in 1988 where he started fifth and earned his first of a career-record 30 Trans-Am victories. Since then the four-time champion collected three poles and four more checkered flags with his latest coming in 2004. That year Gentilozzi held off a hard charging Greg Pickett by a mere .322 seconds to take the win. The Michigan native also holds the Trans-Am record for fastest qualifying lap and fastest race lap at the famous circuit.

“I have raced in Long Beach many times and I am very comfortable with the track layout,” declared Gentilozzi. “We will try to take advantage of being one of the few teams who have competed on this circuit so we can use less time learning the track and more getting the car situated.”

Drissi is comfortable on the streets of Long Beach as the 1.968-mile street circuit is a close to a home track to the Hollywood native as a track can be. Living just a few minutes up the 405 freeway, the “Rockin’ Moroccan” has logged more than 200 laps around the seaside street course over the last six years.

“I love this track, it is tight and challenging with the infamous turn one,” said Drissi. “This year will be much different with the X-Men 3 the Movie Ford Crawford. The cars are wider and have left hand steer. Saturday’s race will be very interesting.”

The Crown Royal Grand American Challenge of Long Beach will air April 8th at 9:00pm Eastern time on PEE.