Catchfence

Team receives ground swell of local support

Loudon, New Hampshire (Sept. 20, 2009) – Bobby Labonte qualified the No. 71 TRG Motorsports Chevrolet Impala SS in eighth for tomorrow’s running of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Labonte put in a lap of 28.888 seconds with an average speed of 132 mph that will see him start from the fourth row on Sunday. The effort is the best starting position that the first-year team has had all season as well as Labonte’s best starting position of 2009.

“The good news is that with the local support that we received, it looks like we will be able to race tomorrow,” Labonte said. “I am really excited about the run that we had. Slugger (Richard Labbe, crew chief) did a good job. I changed air pressure a little bit and screwed up my first lap some. I knew getting into turn three on the second lap was definitely going to be better. I was just hoping it was going to be more than the normal 2/10ths and it was. I am really proud of all the guys on the TRG Motorsports team. It was a lot of fun.”

The team has received a ground swell of local support to allow them to race on Sunday. SBLI Insurance (Savings Bank Life Insurance Company of Massachusetts) came on board during the week and the team signed CBR Motorcars (www.cbrmotorcars.com), EmployInlt.com, Velocity Terminal (racing simulators) and Commonwealth Foreign Exchange (www.comfex.com) to help get the car on the track Sunday.

Kevin Buckler, TRG Motorsports team principal, has a good base of support in the Northeast.

“We have a couple of strong guys in the Northeast that have really helped us out this weekend,” Buckler said. “RJ Valentine, who won the Rolex 24 Hour with us in February, as well as Bruce Ledoux and his Guardian Angel Motorsports group have really helped spread the word this weekend and made that last ditch effort to get the funds we needed to race. Several of our TRG Motorsports partners helped too. Bobby and the crew did a great job in qualifying. When I saw P8 I thought – do you know how many really big team we just out qualified? We have to race tomorrow. That qualifying effort sure made our job easier to secure the funds. Hopefully we can put it all together in the race on Sunday. This is working out to be a magical weekend. It’s still really tight for us and several others are still trying to jump on board and help. It looks like we are going to make it. This sure is going to be an exciting weekend. What a tremendous team we have!”

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Sylvania 300 from New Hampshire Motor Speedway will be televised on ABC starting at 1:00 p.m. ET, Sunday, September 20.

TRG Motorsports New Hampshire supporters:
The Savings Bank Life Insurance Company of Massachusetts (SBLI) www.sbli.com
CBR Motorcars (www.cbrmotorcars.com)
EmployInlt.com
Velocity Terminal (racing simulators)
Commonwealth Foreign Exchange (www.comfex.com)
TaxSlayer.com
Racehost.com

The Savings Bank Life Insurance Company of Massachusetts is committed to providing value, quality, and stability you can count on. SBLI has the largest amount of life insurance in force in the state of Massachusetts. We’ve continually expanded our product offerings. SBLI’s products are now available to consumers in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia. For more information on SBLI and their offerings, visit www.sbli.com.

TRG Motorsports is based in Mooresville, North Carolina. Currently the team fields a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series entry as well as a limited Camping World Truck Series effort and an ARCA RE/MAX Series team. The Racer’s Group was founded in 1993 and has been competing at the top level of sports car racing. TRG’s Porsche sports car program is run out of the company’s headquarters in Petaluma, California. The team has the most wins of any team in the Grand-Am Rolex Series with 28, including the 2005 and 2006 Rolex Series GT championship trophy to go along with wins in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona (three) and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The TRG Motorsports crew is comprised of Mike Brown, Paul Clapprood, Dennis Croxell, Bobby Dell, Marc Hendricksen, Richard “Slugger” Labbe, Andy Pugh, Tim Rice, Jesse Sanders and Joe Zanolini.

TRG Motorsports would also like to thank Racehost.com for their support.

- TRG Motorsports, Press Release