MAIDEN KEY MOTORSPORTS NATIONWIDE SERIES TEST AT RICHMOND
ENDS WITH WRECK BUT EFFORT HAS CREW CHIEF, DRIVER PLEASED

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA (March 26, 2008) – The initial test of the Key Motorsports NASCAR Nationwide Series Chevrolet Monte Carlo has been completed, and even though it ended on a somewhat sour note with a cut tire and subsequent encounter with the first turn wall at Richmond International Raceway, Key Motorsports officials and driver Jeff Green are still smiling.

Green, the 2002 Nationwide Series champion and a 16-time winner in the Series was behind the wheel of Key Motorsports’ #31 Chevrolet midway through the afternoon session of the second test day Tuesday when the right front tire went down. The car darted straight up the race track in the first turn, hitting the outside retaining wall with the right front and also doing some damage to the right rear of the car. Fortunately, the overall damage to the machine is not major, and that has Key’s Nationwide Series car Crew Chief and the organization’s Director of Competition Tommy Morgan relieved.

“Jeff realized that he had a problem and did a good job slowing the car down,” Morgan explained. “There is some suspension damage to the right front and cosmetic damage to the entire right side, but nothing was bent on it and the damage can be repaired in the shop and will be able to race back at Richmond in May,” he added.

Over the three sessions of the four available to the 25 teams and 32 cars during the open test, the #31 Key Motorsports machine gradually improved. “We were starting basically from scratch with this race car, but we would go out for 10 to 15-lap runs, get good feedback from Jeff, make some adjustments and each time the car would get a little better,” said Morgan.

“By that third session on Tuesday, we were running consistent laps in the 22-second range on old tires and running even with most of the good cars. We had just made a suspension change to the left front before the wreck and were planning to complete a 10-lap run with it just to see what the change did to the car. After that, we were going to slap on new tires and do a 50-lap run to see what we really had, but the tire problem killed those plans,” Morgan added.

The fastest lap time recorded during the Tuesday afternoon session was 21.733 seconds by Bobby Hamilton, Jr. with Denny Hamlin second at 21.744, Kevin Harvick third at 21.749 and Kyle Busch fourth at 21.793. “Those cars weren’t running much better than we were on old tires and they recorded their fast laps on new tires at the very start of the session, so we’re pretty pleased with the progress we made,” Morgan stated.

Morgan said that Green also was very pleased with the car and that basically they are ready to race with what they learned from the test.

“We’re good to go,” Morgan said. “Jeff can really race with this car, and when we put on our better manifold, we might just have something for them,” he added.

The race at Richmond is on Friday night, May 2 and will be the first of several that the #31 Key Motorsports car will run in 2008. No official schedule has been announced to this point.