Niemela Finishes 6th at Palo Verde 5k Run

Dana Point, May 8, 2009: Current Cooper Tire Atlantic Champion Markus Niemela finished 6th in last weekend's Palos Verde 5k, run on the roads and hills of San Pedro as support event for the Palos Verde Marathon. Niemela who is an avid long distance runner, uses running as a training device.

"My time was 20:01:00 which is not that great but the course was pretty hard and also very windy. Previously I did a Marathon in 2006 (at Helsinki)and finished 65th out of 6500 runners with time 3:07:17. There was 671 runners in the 5k and I was 6th overall, and 2nd in my age group. Not bad for a Finn huh?"

The next time Markus races it'll be in his #1 New Energy/Mr. Jones Swift 016 at Toole Utah during the Larry H. Miller Dealerships Utah Grand Prix on May 15-17, 2009. The Atlantic round will be part of the three-day race weekend at the Miller Motorsports Park around its 3.06 mile natural road course.