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RealTime to Defend Touring Car Titles

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Courtesy RealTime Racing

 

RealTime to Defend Touring Car Titles

 

SAUKVILLE, Wis. (Feb. 21, 2006) - With RealTime Racing's tenth SCCA Pro
Racing SPEED World Challenge Drivers' and Manufacturers' Championship
trophies secured in its trophy case, the Wisconsin-based Acura squad
will set out to defy the odds and challenge for supremacy once again in
the 2007 SPEED Touring Car Championship.

 

"The manufacturers' battle in Touring Car will be tougher than ever this
year," RealTime leader Peter Cunningham said. "The emerging Audi team
got our attention last year; the BMWs now have a season of development
on their new cars, and our chief rival Mazda returns with a vengeance.
We can't do anything to hold those guys back, so our goal is to do
everything we can to make the RealTime Acuras stronger!"

 

Defending SPEED Touring Car Drivers' Champion Pierre Kleinubing now has
100 Touring Car starts to his credit, and looks forward to again wearing
the number one plate.

 

"The lucky No. 42 was good to me last year," Kleinubing said. "But I
told my boss he could have it back since I have to run the No.1 this
season."

 

That No. 42 has certainly been lucky for Kleinubing and team boss
Cunningham as they have employed that car number on a variety of
championship-winning cars over the years. Kleinubing won two of his four
SPEED Touring Car titles with it while Cunningham has driven that number
in each of his seven SCCA Pro Racing Championships.

 

Rejoining those two World Challenge stalwarts on the RealTime Acura team
will be Brandon Davis and Nick Esayian. Davis was the 2005 SPEED Touring
Car Rookie of the Year and secured his breakthrough SPEED Touring Car
race-victory in front of his fellow Denver University classmates at that
street fight in 2006. Esayian returns for his fourth year with the team
and plans to build on his strong ninth-place ranking from last season.

 

RealTime is also excited to welcome a new driver to the five-man group:
former Mercedes-Benz SPEED Touring Car standout Kuno Wittmer. Kuno was
the 2005 Honda/ Michelin Challenge Drivers' Champion and is sure to be a
significant contributor for RealTime this year. 

 

"Being a part of the best and most-professional World Challenge team is
a great feeling," Wittmer said. "I look forward to working hard with my
four teammates to help achieve 2007 team goals. A great thank you to
RealTime for giving me this opportunity."

 

RealTime Team Manager Nathan Bonneau discussed the team's readiness for
its 15th year of SPEED World Challenge competition.

 

"We know that it will be difficult to repeat the successes we have
enjoyed in these back-to-back championship seasons," Bonneau said. "But
these guys have been putting in long hours to prepare for battle. We'll
do one more test at Sebring before heading back down in a few weeks for
the series opener, so we should have something good to show those boys."

 

From its traditional start at Sebring, Fla., the 10-event SPEED Touring
Car calendar returns to many of its favorite perennial venues as well as
two former World Challenge tracks that weren't on the 2006 schedule:
Connecticut's Lime Rock Park and Upstate New York's Watkins Glen. So
stay tuned to SPEED for another season-long collection of
fender-to-fender SPEED Touring Car skirmishes.

 

The RealTime Acura team is sponsored by Acura, Acura Certified Pre-Owned
Vehicles, Red Line Oil, Eibach Springs, buyBrakes.com, Sparco, Hawk
Performance, Brembo, A-SPEC, BOSCH, Valley Graphix, Total Auto Body,
PACT and A-YES. 

 

 

-30-

Attached photo courtesy RealTime Racing

 

Erin Cechal

SCCA Public Relations Specialist

800/770-2055 ext. 354

ecechal@scca.com

www.scca.com

 

 


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