Stewart Racing, McMahan Return to Knoxville Saturday
Thursday, April 26, 2007
INDIANAPOLIS (April 24, 2007) – For Paul McMahan and the rest of the World of Outlaws (WoO) Sprint Series competitors, this Saturday’s event at Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway will kick off the annual pilgrimage to the crown jewel of winged sprint car racing, the Knoxville Nationals.
The No. 20 Tony Stewart Racing/Bass Pro Shops/Eagle team has a long-standing reputation of success at Knoxville including back-to-back Knoxville Nationals victories in 2003 and 2004.
TSR driver McMahan hopes to continue the success of the No. 20 team at Knoxville by earning not only his first victory of the 2007 season, but his first win at the legendary 1/2-mile raceway. In last year’s 46th annual Knoxville Nationals, McMahan crossed the finish line in 11th.
McMahan and the No. 20 TSR/Bass Pro Shops/Eagle team enter this weekend’s racing action ranked 10th in the WoO Sprint Series Championship standings. The team has earned one top-five finish and five top-10 finishes thus far in 2007, putting McMahan only 296 points behind series leader Donny Schatz. The team has also won one B-main and one dash event in 15 races.
The grandstands for Saturday’s World of Outlaws Sprint Series event at Knoxville Raceway will open at 5 p.m. EDT with hot laps scheduled to begin at 6:45 p.m. Knoxville Raceway is located at the Marion County Fairgrounds at the north edge of town on State Road 14.
Race fans can also listen to all the action from this weekend on the DIRTVision.com cybercast, as well as on the DIRT Radio Network. Visit www.DIRTVision.com for more information on all the features, including updated results from each night of racing, as well as a chat room to interact with other fans listening to the action.
The WoO Sprint Series will also return to television this year beginning with the series’ first broadcast on SPEED on May 13 at 2 p.m. EDT. A total of 20 races will be televised either on SPEED or ESPN2, including the World of Outlaws SuperClean Summer of Money Series. ESPN2 will broadcast eight races beginning June 17 through August 5. All show times on ESPN2 will begin at 12:30 p.m. EDT. For a complete television schedule, log on to www.worldofoutlaws.com.
Quotes from Paul McMahan, driver of the No. 20 TSR/Bass Pro Shops/Eagle:
Describe your first look at Knoxville Raceway from inside the cockpit.
“My first event at Knoxville was the Knoxville Nationals, the biggest event of them all. I remember sitting in my car, strapped in, waiting to be pushed off. You really absorb everything in your first event at a track like Knoxville. There weren’t any suites at that point, or any grandstands on the backstretch. I remember being in awe of the number of cars that were in the pits and the number of people that were in the stands. It was surreal. To be sitting in a racecar about to compete at a place like that is something you don’t forget. The event itself is huge and it just continues to grow. It’s an amazing facility.”
How do you expect the Chevrolet engine to perform on the big, sweeping turns at Knoxville?
“Knoxville and Eldora are tracks that really give you a good opportunity to find out where your engine program is. Tracks of that size and tracks that require a lot of horsepower are great tests. I think we’re going to be fine. We just got a new Chevrolet engine from Kistler Engines a couple of weeks ago. It was the one we ran at Eldora earlier this month. We qualified really well with it and if the track is good and we get a decent number in the qualifying draw, we’ll be in good shape to possibly get our first win of the year for Bass Pro Shops.”
It seems as if Knoxville Raceway offers great racing action for competitors and fans alike. Would you agree?
“Things can change at Knoxville in the blink of an eye. You’re always looking ahead for anything that could happen but you really have to be on your toes. It also depends on who is in front of you when you’re racing. It can get pretty wild if you get into a group of lapped traffic that’s trying to sort itself out. The great thing about Knoxville is that it’s big and wide which gives us an opportunity to race four-wide. You never know what you’re going to get with a race at Knoxville, but it’s a sure bet that it will be entertaining.”
For complete WoO Sprint Series results, log on to www.worldofoutlaws.com. For information regarding Stewart, McMahan, Bass Pro Shops or Chevrolet, log on to www.tonystewart.com, www.paulmcmahanracing.com, www.basspro.com or www.chevrolet.com.
-TSR-
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