RICKY RUDD, SNICKERS® RACING
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
JUNE 17, 2007
#88 SNICKERS CREW LOOKS FOR ANOTHER TOP-10 FINISH ON FATHER’S DAY

CHARLOTTE, NC (June 12, 2007) – The NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series travels to Michigan International Speedway this weekend for the Citizens Bank 400. Ricky Rudd and his #88 Snickers Racing crew will spend Father’s Day at the 2.0 mile speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan. The Citizens Bank 400 will be the last standard car chassis race until the Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway in July. The chassis the #88 team will run this weekend is the same car Rudd posted a seventh-place finish with in Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600 in May.

Quoting Snickers Driver, Ricky Rudd:
What do you enjoy about racing at Michigan?
“I like racing at Michigan because it's plenty wide. Michigan was one of the modern day tracks that a lot of the newer tracks were based off of. I think the reason for that is due to the fact that there is room for passing and you have plenty of race track with three lanes wide of racing. The track always gets a little slippery, but you always have grooves to run in and it's a lot easier to find lines to be able to get clean air to run laps in. Guys really like to race there because you do have plenty of options and lines to run if you get stuck in traffic.”


Looking ahead to Infineon Raceway next weekend, are you ready for a road course? “I feel like personally I'm ready to go out and run the road course next week after coming off of our two VIR (Virginia International Raceway) tests. It's been a couple of years since I've been on a road course so even if we wouldn’t have learned anything for the COT, I felt as though the test tuned me up for Infineon. I felt pretty rusty during the first three hours in the car, but eventually I settled in and I just felt really comfortable again. Our car was fast at VIR but you can't really compare VIR to Infineon at all, but we were able to look at a lot of different car set-ups and we saw some patterns so that when we go to Infineon we have a base plan to go from. I feel really good about it, but we'll see what happens once we get to Sonoma next week.”


# NOTES OF INTEREST: Rudd has an average starting position of 15.5, and an average finish of 18.5 at Michigan
# Rudd has 58 starts at Michigan, which is the most all-time starts of all NEXTEL Cup Series drivers
# Rudd has completed 10210 of 11556 laps at Pocono (88.4 percent) and has led 347 laps
# Rudd’s best start at Michigan has been from the second position which he accomplished five times
# Rudd has one victory at Michigan and it occurred in the Miller Genuine Draft 400 of June 1993
# Brian Dantinne, car chief on the #88 crew, is a graduate of Stephenson High School in Stephenson, Mich. and is originally from Wallace, Michigan
# Paul Jamison, tire specialist on the #88 crew, is originally from Middleville, Mich. Jamison is a graduate of Thornapple Kellogg High School and is a member of the Michigan Motorsports Hall of Fame as the 1989 Quarter Midget Champion
# Stephen Ponatowski, front tire changer on the #88 crew, is a 1993 graduate of Holly High in Ortonville, Mich.

CHASSIS #79
Chassis #79 is the car the #88 Snickers Racing team will be running this weekend for the Citizens Bank 400. This is the same chassis the team ran in Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600 and had their best regular-season finish of seventh place.