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BACKGROUNDER - The Pennzoil Hall Racing Crew

Directed by team manager Gerald Davis, the Pennzoil Hall Racing team has decades of racing experience. Here's the lineup:

ALEX HERING

Native of Toronto began working on Porsche race cars at age 13 for Vasek Polak. His father was an executive of VW-Porsche-Audi Canada, where Polak housed his cars while in Canada. Hering started in the sport polishing Can-Am cars of Jody Scheckter & Steve Durst. In 1976 at Trois Rivieres he worked on George Follmer's Porsche 934 Trans-Am championship car. After graduation from David & Mary Thompson Collegiate Institute, Toronto, joined Vasek Polak Racing again in 1979. Worked briefly for VW-Canada Remanufacturing, then joined Ludwig Heimrath team, spent four months training at Porsche factory in Stuttgart and Weisach, returned to work full time on multi-car Heimrath team, which fielded IMSA GTP, a GTO & a GTU cars plus a Super Vee for Ludwig Heimrath Jr. After two winters off to work at a Barrie, Ont., ski resort, he accepted a position with Al Holbert, working on Holbert's IMSA car in 1986-87 & from 1987-90 on his Porsche Indy car team. Joined the Hall team early in 1991 as the transmission specialist. After the Gold Coast race in 1994 he was promoted to chief mechanic. Marriage to Angie was in January, 1993. They have a son, Andrew Alexander, born in Odessa, Texas, just before the start of the 1995 season. Hering won the $5,000 CAM George Bignotti Preparation Award for having the most consistently well prepared car in the 1995 season, according to a panel of IndyCar and USAC technical officials.

STEVE EPPARD

A racing enthusiast who made a career of the sport, he began racing go-karts in the 1960s, moving on to a job working on John Mahler's formula 5000 race car in Eppard's hometown of Bettendorf, Iowa, in 1970. After a brief period for apprenticeship at Caterpiller Tractor Co., he joined Kohler Company's marketing department and worked on company race cars driven to four SCCA national championships. Driver Jeff Miller won Atlanta Runoff titles in D Sports Racing in 1976-77-81 and C Sports Racing in 1978. Eppard joined Steve Shelton's formula Atlantic team, which won the championship in 1988, then jumped to the Nissan factory team in 1989 and worked with driver Geoff Brabham, who won four driver's and three factory titles in IMSA-GT racing in 1989-92. Joining the American Equipment Racing team on the SCCA Trans-Am circuit in 1992, he worked with Scott Sharp and with champion Jack Baldwin. Last season Eppard handled gearboxes for the Jim Hall team. Single, he is a graduate of Bettendorf High School and also studied at Palmer Junior College, Davenport, Iowa.

TOM FEURY

First paid job on a racing team, but he helped Chris Russo on his winged sprint car two years in Albuquerque. Graduate, Sandia High School, attended U. of New Mexico one year. Heard from friends at Galles Racing about the job opening last year, lobbied hard to get it, joined Hall Racing just before the 1994 Phoenix race. Learned pit communication, a tough specialty, on the job in 1994 and earned high marks for his work.

KIRK GOWENS

Originally from Omaha, Neb., Gowens was an army buddy of Ricky Martinez. He entered the army after graduation from Platteview High School, and spent eight years serving as a Sergeant at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina. Worked as a diesel mechanic. This is his first professional racing assignment. Married to wife Joyce for six years and has four children, Kyle Jr., 4, Zachary, 2, and twin daughters, Samantha & Jessica, born Mar. 30, 1995. Makes Odessa, Texas, home now.

BILLY HOBBS

Growing up in Indianapolis, Ind., he became a racing fan from watching several Indianapolis 500 races. After graduating from Broad Ripple High School (David Letterman's alma mater), he attended art school at the Herron School of Arts in Indianapolis, but quit to work on a friend's Formula Ford racing team. Claimed he did not know the difference between a nut and a bolt when he first started out but learned enough to work for teams in SCCA, Indy Lights and several Indy Car teams, including Arciero-Wells Racing, Leader Card Racers and Bettenhausen Motorsports. Single, he has also attended Indiana University.

RICKY MARTINEZ

Army veteran grew up in Odessa, Texas, was working for a J. B. Hunt in Dallas and heard about the opening at Hall Racing. He spent 4 years in the army, 15 months of it in Korea, after graduation from Permian High School in Odessa, next door to Midland. The closest he had been to motor racing was watching it on TV until he came to the team in March, 1995.

PETER ROBAND

While an auto mechanic apprentice in Taupo, New Zealand, he heard a talk by the late Denis Hulme and decided to make a career in racing, in which he had been dabbling for fun on weekends for four years. Worked in an engine shop in Sydney, Australia, 1978-81, then left to work for Docking Spitzley Racing in England (formula 3). Roband moved to formula 1 in 1983 and began working for a variety of teams. Highlights: F-1, Theodore Racing, drivers Roberto Guerrero & Johnny Cecotto, 1983; Ram, drivers Jonathan Palmer & Phillipe Alliot, part of 1984; IndyCar, Provimi Veal, Tony Bettenhausen & Derek Daly, the other part of 1984; Dick Simon & Raul Boesel, 1986-87; (chief mechanic), Ludwig Heimrath, 1987; Indy Lights, Juan Manuel Fangio, 1988; Indy cars, Steve Butler, Johnny Rutherford & Kevin Cogan, 1989-90; Buddy Lazier, Gordon Johncock, Stan Fox, 1990-92; Marco Greco, 1993; Jeff Andretti, 1994. He and wife Jeri have a daughter, Kelsey, 3.

JOHN SIMMONS

Originally from Centralia, Wash., he is new to Indy car racing, but not to racing. For a period after assignments with Nissan's IMSA campaign and Dan Gurney's All American Racing, he worked in the top-secret spy plane program for the government and built masts for America's Cup racing yachts such as the American Eagle for Omohundro. Single, Simmons lived in Costa Mesa, Calif., before arriving at Midland, Texas, to work for Hall Racing last season.

GREG STRYDESKY

He was destined for organized baseball before his pitching arm was hurt while playing for North Carolina Wilmington as a freshman. Returning home to San Diego, he enrolled at San Diego State & Grossmont College. He was working for an aerospace firm and playing in a semi-pro league when he took a job in 1988 with NPTI, the Nissan IMSA factory team. While there he built the first successfully tested and approved composite rollcage. After NPTI closed in 1992 he moved to Omohundro in Costa Mesa to build satellite dishes and masts for America's Cup yachts America3 and Stars & Stripes. Joined Hall Racing in April, 1994. Still enjoys surfing, weightlifting, volunteered to coach the team's softball club. Single, he has a daughter, Nicole, 4, living in San Diego.

DAVE VAUGHN

Racing career dates to his childhood, when he crewed on his dad's modified dirt car, going to school days, working in the garage at night & traveling all over the Northeast on weekends. Father, Bob Vaughn, raced in the Daytona 500 in 1967. Dave started racing his own modified in 1969, also raced URC sprint cars. He came to Hall Racing from Galles, where he was shop fabricator for six years. He had a year and a half at Patrick Racing and eight years with Eldon Rasmussen before that. His specialty is exhaust systems. Single, he has sons David Jr., 23, & Brian, 18, once worked two full time jobs, "one to support my boys, the other to support racing."

RANDY WELLS

A walk-on from Melbourne, Fla., he sent in a resume and then met the team during pre-season testing at Homestead International Speedway in December. He was a mechanic-engineer for driver Richie Hearn at Della Penna in Toyota Atlantic competition in 1994 and 1995 while finishing studies for his mechanical engineering degree at Florida Institute of Technology at Melbourne. Last year he flew to races and did his homework in his hotel room at night until graduation in May. He started driving in SCCA Formula 440 racing, then worked as a volunteer for Kryder Racing on the IMSA GTU circuit. At Palm Bay High School he also played a tenor sax in the school band and in a jazz combo.

KIM KOLLAR

Born in Pomona, Calif., she has lived in Midland most of her life. She worked at Chaparral Cars from 1980 to 1985, then briefly for another company before starting her own computer bookkeeping business in 1986. When the Hall team began operations in October, 1990, the call went out to her, and she was pleased to get back into racing. Her children are Mark, 29, Kristin, 25, & Steven, 22.