Catchfence

Mooresville, North Carolina (February 24, 2009) – TRG Motorsports is taking the momentum from their first Sprint Cup start and finish at Auto Club Speedway two days ago to round three of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Shelby 427 to be run at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday, March 1.

David Gilliland drove a calculated race behind the wheel of the No. 71 TRG Motorsports Chevrolet Impala SS resulting in a 33rd place finish in the team’s first ever NASCAR Sprint Cup start two days ago at Auto Club Speedway in California. Richard “Slugger” Labbe put his years of NASCAR experience to work as he guided the new team to its first Sprint Cup checkered flag.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway is a tough 1.5-mile D-shaped tri-oval, similar to Auto Club Speedway, but higher speed. In 2008 Gilliland started 38th and finished 23rd at the speedway located next to Nellis Air Force Base.

“I like Vegas, it has a little more banking,” Gilliland said. “I have always liked tracks with more banking. I ran real good there last year. I am looking forward to going back there. It is a fast mile-and-a-half track. Those are my favorite kind of race tracks.”

The teamed learned a lot in California that can be applied to this weekend.

“We are fortunate to run the same car as we ran in California – thankfully we did not have any major incidences. We will work on this car leading up to the race and apply all of our notes from last Sunday. The team got better and better last weekend and my best lap times were toward the end of the race. Of all the team’s running we will have the steepest, but most rapid learning curve. A lot of the work the team did on the adjustments during Sunday’s race were important, so now we know what did and did not work and apply them in Vegas.”

TRG Motorsports team principal Kevin Buckler has a plan and so far it is coming to fruition.

“We are determined to be in the top 35 points following the Bristol round,” Buckler said. “David and Slugger really worked well together in California, considering they were just brought together last Friday. We have some race laps under our belt in NASCAR competition now. We just have to keep it going and get as many points as possible toward making it in the top 35 in points. We are the new kids in the Sprint Cup Series and we are taking a humble approach and a head-down work ethic.”

The Shelby 427 from Las Vegas Motor Speedway will be televised on FOX starting at 3:30 p.m. PT on Sunday, March 1.

TRG Motorsports is based in Mooresville, North Carolina, where they run a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team as well as an ARCA RE/MAX Series effort. 2008 marked the first full season of competition for TRG in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series where they recorded one win, one top-five and ten top ten finishes overall. The team’s sister company, The Racer’s Group, was founded in 1993 has been competing at the top level of motor racing ever since. The team kicked off this year’s Speed Weeks on a high note by winning the GT class at the Rolex 24 Hour at Daytona. TRG has the most wins of any team in the Grand-Am Rolex Series with 26, including the 2005 and 2006 Rolex Series GT championship trophy to go along with wins at the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

TRG Motorsports, Press Release