Dan Pardus Press Release

December 15-17, 2000

ARCA TESTS IN DAYTONA

Most race car drivers aspire to race in Winston Cup.

Visit the garage area of any ARCA race event and it seems as if most Winston Cup team owners aspire to race in ARCA. Strolling through the garage area during an ARCA event one will spot the transporters of Penske Racing, Hendrick Motorsports, Dale Earnhardt, Inc., Junie Dunlavey Racing, and Eel River Racing. These are a few of the many Winston Cup teams now participating in ARCA, testing car set-ups or grooming rookie drivers for an eventual move up to Winston Cup.

The three days of ARCA testing at Daytona International Speedway had its share of high profile Cup teams. "We welcome them to the competition", Dan Pardus said during a break in testing. "These teams usually have 'unlimited resources' for equipment and testing. They force us to step our program up a notch and try harder to remain competitive. It's fun to run against the big moneyed teams. It's even more exciting to beat them"!

During the weekend test at DIS, Car #42 recorded either top five or top ten testing speeds during the various practice sessions. Jim Gardner spoke, "Our test times were consistent throughout the weekend. On the first day, we recorded a time of 49.674/181.181 mph. On Sunday we moved up to 48.981/183.745 mph. We came to the test with some new set-up ideas, which worked out well, and we are leaving with a few new ones. You are never satisfied until you are sitting in Victory Lane after the race."