Sunny So. Cal Not So Kind to Mark Green

Fontana, Calif. (February 25, 2006) - Coming off an impressive 10th place finish in last weekend’s running of the Hershey’s Kissables 300 at Daytona International Speedway, Mark Green and the GEICO Racing team were looking forward to racing in sunny Southern California in Saturday’s running of the Stater Bros. “300”, but a loose car led to boiling tempers following an early race wreck on lap four.

A well-known “cookie-cutter” style track, California Speedway is home to car owner, Fred Biagi, and one stop on the 35-race schedule that the GEICO Racing team had hoped to conquer.  “The race track is basically the same as Las Vegas,” explained Mark Green after testing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.  “It’s just a half-mile bigger.” 

Bigger is not always better; proven true after Green and the GEICO team battled a loose car all weekend.

“The banking (at California Speedway) is pretty close to Las Vegas,” said Green.  “If you’ve got a car that will turn good and is aerodynamically good at Las Vegas, then it should be good at California, too.”  Even though the GEICO team had a successful test at Las Vegas, they struggled to find grip on the 2-mile oval of California Speedway.

At the drop of the green flag, Green was on the ragged edge of losing control.  Holding onto the steering wheel and mashing the gas, Green was doing everything he could to gain control of the GEICO Dodge.  Just four laps into the 150 lap event, Green was racing with the No. 12 car in turns three and four when he lost control, was bumped by the 90 car, and turned into the wall; ending his day prematurely.

“We fought a loose car all weekend,” said Green after retiring the GEICO Dodge.  “We were racing with the 12 and he just took the air off our car.  I almost had it saved, but we got hit by the 90 and that shoved us up into the wall.  It was a disappointing day, but we’ll get our GEICO Dodge fixed and ready for Las Vegas in two weeks.”

Green and the GEICO team will have another opportunity to conquer California Speedway when the Series returns to So. Cal in the fall.

Green will step out of the GEICO ride for one weekend when one of the world’s top race car drivers, Paul Tracy, straps into the GEICO Dodge for the Telcel-Motorola 200 presented by Banamex at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, Mexico on Sunday, March 5th, 2006.  Tracy is the 2003 Champ Car Series Champion and is no stranger to the 2.518-mile road course.  Tracy won the Champ Car race there in 2003 and came home third in 2005.

Green will be back behind the wheel of the GEICO Dodge for the Sam’s Town 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday, March 11th, 2006.

The Busch Series’ first road course race will be televised live on FOX at 2 p.m. ET with radio coverage provided by MRN and XM satellite radio.