Catchfence

No. 81 Greenville Toyota of N.C. Toyota Camry

ARCA Racing Series presented by RE/MAX and Menards: 8 of 20

Track: Michigan International Speedway

Date: June 11, 2010

Craig Goess and the Eddie Sharp Racing No. 81 Greenville Toyota of N.C. Toyota will take the track in the Racing For Wildlife 200 at Michigan International Speedway on Friday, June 11, 2010. Coming off his first ARCA Racing Series victory at Pocono Raceway, Goess hopes to keep the momentum from the win going as the team rolls into the Irish Hills of Brooklyn, Mich., this weekend.

Pocono Victory – The No. 81 ESR Greenville Toyota of N.C. team had a good feeling going into last week’s race at Pocono. As excitement built throughout the weekend, so did the momentum towards victory. Lining up third, Goess did not waste any time moving to the front of the pack. Behind leader Mikey Kile for much of the race, Goess’ determination to bring home the win outweighed anything else. Strategic calls from crew chief Johnny Allen and clean pit stops from the No. 81 team helped Goess gain the lead on lap 68. He held the lead until the checkered flag on lap 80.

Added to Team Record Books: Goess’ victory at Pocono served as the fifth ESR driver to steer a car to victory lane in the ARCA Racing Series. In the 17th team win, Goess added his name to the ESR record books. Justin Lofton, now racing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, won the 2009 ARCA Racing Series championship and swept up seven wins over 2008 and 2009. Scott Speed, current NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver, won four races in 2008. Michael McDowell, driving this season in NSCS and the NASCAR Nationwide Series, won four races in 2007. Ken Butler III won the first race for ESR at Toledo Speedway in 2007.

Testing at MIS: Goess topped the charts two weeks ago at the morning session of the ARCA Racing Series open test at Michigan International Speedway. He led the field of 28 participating cars, turning the 2-mile track in 39.475 seconds (182.394 mph). After the afternoon session, Goess finished the day with the third-quickest overall time behind Mikey Kile and current ARCA point leader Patrick Sheltra.

Success at Michigan: In Goess’ only start at Michigan, he finished in the 10th position. ESR has also found success at MIS over the years. In 2008, ESR drivers stole the show as Scott Speed won the pole and Lofton won the race, capturing the race record for ARCA at MIS with a average lap speed of 150.596 mph. In 2009, Lofton earned the pole award.

Guest on Pit Pass USA: Goess is a guest on Pit Pass USA with Larry Henry on Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 8 p.m. Henry is the Public Address announcer at MIS and serves in other announcing capacities in various sports. The show will be broadcast on the PowerUp Motorsports Channel at www.powerupchannel.com.

In the Points: The win at Pocono moved Goess up two spots in the ARCA Racing Series point standings to the fifth position. He is now 40 points behind Steve Arpin in the fourth position and 140 points out of first place.

SPEED Broadcast: The Racing for Wildlife 200 will be the fifth of 10 races on the ARCA Racing Series schedule to be broadcast on the SPEED Channel. The live race coverage begins at 5 p.m. EST. Live streaming audio will be also featured on the ARCA Racing Network at www.arcaracing.com with scoring and timing at 5 p.m. EST.

Craig Goess Jr.

Goess on Michigan:

“We had a really great test at Michigan a few weeks ago. The car that we will be running is a great car. We ran it at Texas back in April where we led a lot of laps, and it felt really good there. We have a few new things that we want to try that we ran out of time to try out during the test, so we know what we need to work on there. If we can get the car to where we know it can be, hopefully we will be back in victory lane again on Friday night.”