---

IRL: Greg Ray and Oldsmobile Tame the 'Monster Mile'

2 August 1999

DOVER, Del. - Greg Ray mastered the "Monster Mile" today, scoring his
second win of the season in Team Menard's Glidden Oldsmobile Dallara in the
MBNA Mid-Atlantic 200. Ray reprised his winning performance last June on
the Pikes Peak one-mile oval by beating Buddy Lazier to the finish line by
.731 seconds on Dover Downs International Speedway's high-banked concrete
speed bowl. Ray led an Oldsmobile sweep of the top 20 finishing positions.

    Ray, a 32-year-old racer from Plano, Texas, started third, and
had resigned himself to a second-place finish until he passed Mark Dismore
on a late-race restart. "It was really pretty simple," Ray recalled. "On
the restart they all got bottled up on the high side. I came off Turn 2 low
and passed about seven or eight cars. My engineer said that was the move of
the race.

    "Dismore was the guy to beat," he declared. "Getting around him was
the pass for the race."

    Dismore and his Kelley Racing teammate Scott Sharp had qualified
their Oldsmobile Dallaras on the front row and dominated the first half of
the 200-lap marathon. Sharp led the first 34 laps but lost a tire and
encountered the wall. Dismore then took charge for the next 87 circuits.
But Dismore and Stephen Gregoire, running third and second respectively,
tangled on lap 189 and were out of contention.

    Buddy Lazier benefited from their misfortune, posting a runner-up
finish at Dover for the second straight year in Hemelgarn Racing's
Oldsmobile Dallara.

    "It was grueling, it was tough," said Lazier, who worked his way from
17th to second place on a stifling 90-degree afternoon. "I'm thrilled to be
second. It's still the first loser, but we'll try harder next year.

    "My engine was amazing," Lazier added. "My last laps were 181 mph,
which is way quicker than we qualified. My engine was as good at the end as
it was at the beginning."

    Kenny Brack's third-place finish in Dover duplicated his results in
the preceding event in Atlanta. "It was a good run, but we didn't quite
have what it took," explained the reigning IRL and Indy 500 champion. "We
had a little luck, too. Guys who were faster fell to the wayside, and we
made no mistakes today. The engine ran good, but my top gear ratio was a
hair short and I hit the rev limiter early when I was running in the
draft."

    Billy Boat, Brack's teammate at A.J. Foyt Enterprises, finished fourth
in his Harrah's Oldsmobile Dallara. Sam Schmidt was fifth in Treadway
Racing's Sprint PCS G-Force.

    Ray's victory extended Oldsmobile's IRL winning streak to 26
straight races. Twenty-three of the 22 starters used IRL Aurora V8 engines.
All 13 car running at the finish relied Oldsmobile power, and Oldsmobile
engines led all 200 laps. The only Infiniti in the field started 19th and
finished 21st. The "Monster Mile" lived up to its fearsome reputation,
devouring six cars in accidents - but without any driver injuries.

    Ray jumped from fifth to second in the championship standings, just
2 points behind leader Scott Goodyear. Brack is third in the race for the
Pep Boys Million, 12 points behind Ray.

    "There are ten guys who can win this championship," Ray noted. "All
these guys are pretty friendly, but they're going to get very serious about
that $1 million payoff."

    After a four-week break, the chase for the IRL title will resume at
Pikes Pike International Raceway in Fountain, Colo., on Sunday, August 29.