SAMAX Motorsports Rolex 24 at Daytona Preview (05)

Rolex 24 at Daytona 2007 Preview


SAMAX Motorsports Ready to Challenge the World's Best at Daytona

Wednesday January 24, 2006. - Florida-based SAMAX Motorsports is 
ready to challenge the world's best drivers and teams this weekend at 
the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the opening round of the 15-race 
Grand-American Rolex Sports Car Series 2007 schedule. The twice 
around the clock race at the 3.56-mile (5.73 Km) Daytona 
International Speedway road course will feature a combined entry list 
of 70 Daytona Prototypes (DP) and GT sports cars. SAMAX will field 
two Pontiac Riley prototypes for the 45th annual classic edition. 
Eight drivers from seven countries will share duties for SAMAX.

  "Without a doubt this is the best group of drivers that I have ever 
had the opportunity to work with," commented SAMAX team principal 
Peter Baron. "If you look across all the entries in the 24, there are 
only a handful of line-ups with no weaknesses, and we firmly believe 
we are amongst the strongest."

#11 CITGO Racing by SAMAX Pontiac Riley
Regular season drivers Milka Duno and Canadian Patrick Carpentier, 
now living in Las Vegas, will be joined for the season opener by 
English driver Darren Manning and Scotland's Ryan Dalziel in the #11 
CITGO Racing Pontiac Riley. Last season at Daytona, Duno, from 
Caracas, Venezuela teamed up with Dario and Marino Franchitti and 
Kevin McGarrity to bring home the CITGO car in eighth place overall, 
while Carpentier, who was making his first-ever start in a prototype, 
led Eddie Cheever's Lexus Crawford during 68 laps over a period of 
two hours late Saturday night. However, a mechanical failure, while 
in fourth place, foiled their podium bid two hours from the end of 
the race.

Manning, a seasoned veteran of open wheel racing, was quick during 
the series winter test sessions setting fast laps on a regular basis. 
Although Manning was not accustomed to an endurance-racing car, owner 
Peter Baron was impressed with his showing and asked the former 
Formula One BAR Honda test driver and IRL regular to join his team 
for the 24-Hour classic. Dalziel, a European driver who made a name 
for himself in North America, finished runner-up two years in a row 
in the Atlantic Series before switching to sports cars in 2005. He 
made 13 combined starts in the Rolex GT class and ALMS GT1 category, 
finishing twice on the podium; his first-ever with SAMAX at 
Miami/Homestead in 2005. Last year, he started 14 Daytona Prototype 
races, finishing once on the podium and twice in the Top-5.

#7 SAMAX Pontiac Riley
Tomas Enge, of the Czech Republic, will lead the #7 SAMAX Pontiac 
Riley entry. This will be Enge's first Daytona 24 race, but the Indy 
Racing League competitor is a Le Mans champion. He has raced the 
French classic event since 2002, collecting the GTS pole the first 
three years and winning the class in 2003. He won the GT1 pole the 
following year, and was runner-up last season in the Aston Martin GT1 
class entry. The much experienced Enge will be teamed with a talented 
trio of younger drivers: Atlanta native Chris Festa, now living in 
Tallahassee, Florida, Roger Yasukawa of West Hollywood, California, 
and Christian Montanari, a citizen of the Republic of San Marino. 
Although well versed in open wheel competition, the trio has had 
limited experience in endurance racing.

All three began their careers in Karting before moving up to open 
wheel racing. Yasukawa, 29, and Festa, 20, followed the US open-wheel 
ladder system from the Barber Dodge series to Atlantic. After two 
seasons in England in 1997 and 1998, Yasukawa came back to America to 
pursue his route. Following a full season in Atlantics in 2002 where 
he won at the Milwaukee Mile, he graduated to the Indy Racing League. 
Since 2003, he has entered 36 IRL races with his best season coming 
in his rookie year where he finished 12th overall with eight Top-10 
finishes.

Festa began his open wheel career in 2003 after five years of 
Karting. He successfully raced Skip Barber Formulas, Fran-Am 2000, 
Formula Ford 2000 and Toyota Atlantics before moving up to the Indy 
Pro Series (IPS) in 2005. He recently signed a deal with Ganassi 
Racing who announced an IPS program for 2007. As for Montanari, he 
spent his career in Europe in Formula 3 and F-3000. During the last 
two seasons, the 25 year-old driver competed in the World Series by 
Renault, finishing 8th overall in 2005 and 7th in the 2006 final 
standings.

SAMAX Motorsports, based in Pompano Beach, Florida, is in its third 
year of competition in the Grand-American Rolex Series. The team will 
field two Daytona Prototypes in this weekend's Rolex 24 at Daytona. 
Steve Challis is the technical director of the #11 CITGO Racing crew, 
and Travis Lowe is chief engineer of the #7 Pontiac Riley entry. More 
information on SAMAX Motorsports is available at 
www.samaxmotorsports.com .

"Our team has come alive since the addition of Steve Challis as our 
Lead Engineer," said Baron. With him, our cars are now showing 
incredible speed and drivability. Our fantastic crew, led by Geoff 
Carter, has been planning for this race since last year's season 
finale in Salt Lake City. Two weeks after the season ended, we were 
testing at Daytona for the 24-Hour. We have been waiting for this 
race to start for five months and finally we are there. The team has 
done all the 24-Hour prep and practice we can handle. I don't think 
our expectations have ever been this high. As long as we avoid 
incidents, I think there is a good chance to see both cars on the 
podium," concluded Baron.

Weekend Schedule
The action starts Thursday morning with two practice sessions 
scheduled for the Daytona Prototypes. Following practice, the 
prototypes will take the track for the first round of qualifying at 
3:45 p.m. with the top 30 securing their positions on the grid. A 
second qualifying session is scheduled on Friday morning for those 
failed to qualify on Thursday.

The grid for the Rolex 24 at Daytona will open at noon on Saturday, 
followed by pre-race ceremonies. The green flag for the race will be 
waved at 1:30 p.m. SPEED and FOX Sports will combine to offer 15 
hours of race coverage from Daytona. SAMAX press releases will be 
sent following Thursday's qualifying and the end of Sunday's race. 
Learn more about Grand-Am at www.grand-am.com .

Information
Max d'Orsonnens: 514-990-4988

On-site Contacts
Robert Desrosiers for Patrick Carpentier: 514-975-6223 - 
r_desrosiers@sympatico.ca
Harry Capehart_ for Milka Duno: 626-852-9606 - hcapehart@hotmail.com