Tony Ave Racing Enters SPEED GT with Joey Scarallo

Defending SCCA GT-1 National Champion Tony Ave Racing, of Maiden, N.C., has teamed up with its former Trans-Am driver Joey Scarallo, of Hauppauge, N.Y., to compete in the 2008 SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge GT Championship.

For their full-season effort, the team has purchased the Chevrolet Corvette campaigned last season by SPEED GT Rookie of the Year Brian Kubinski.

“Given the limited timeframe to prepare for the season, we didn’t really have the time to build our own car from the ground up,” Ave said. “We’ll see what we can learn from this year, and intend to expand to two cars in SPEED GT for 2009, as well as get into the Touring Car ranks, provided the series has the momentum we’re hoping for.

“Joey Scarallo was an obvious choice for us, as we ran at the front in Trans-Am in 2005 together. He has tested our ARCA stock cars and we will be running him some in that arena, but his Trans-Am experience combined with his desire to get back to the front, where he belongs, matches up well with our desire to establish the team as a World Challenge front runner. Unfortunately, we got a very late start, but by the third or fourth round, we should have the bugs worked out. The only variable is the car at this point. Once it’s right, Joey will be tough.”

“I miss Trans-Am, but at the moment World Challenge is where it’s at as far as sprint-style road racing goes,” Scarallo said. “I’ve run up front in Tony’s cars before, and we are both confident that he and his crew will figure out this style of car in time for me to make a strong run as the season rolls on.”

Group A Wheels is already onboard as a sponsor and future announcements regarding additional marketing partners will follow.

Divided into two separate series and races (SCCA SPEED GT and SCCA SPEED Touring Car), the SCCA SPEED World Challenge Championships are America’s top production car-based series. SCCA SPEED World Challenge events are a maximum of 50 minutes in length, feature standing starts and the world’s most popular manufacturers racing head-to-head. For more information see www.world-challenge.com.