KEY MOTORSPORTS TEAM IS OPTIMISTIC ABOUT ITS CHANCES
IN ITS 2008 NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES DEBUT AT RICHMOND

MOORESVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA (April 25, 2008) – For the first time in 10 NASCAR seasons, a Key Motorsports race car will grace the starting grid in a Nationwide Series event when the nation’s number two racing series visits the Richmond International Raceway on Friday night, May 2.

The #31 Key Motorsports Chevrolet Monte Carlo, to be driven by veteran and former Nationwide Series champion Jeff Green, is expected to be amongst the 43 starters when the Lipton Tea 250 takes the green flag at 7:30 p.m. Much has gone on behind the scenes of the Key Motorsports operation, one that has competed full-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series the last three years, in preparation for this debut.

“I’ve always had a fondness for the Nationwide Series since competing in it for six seasons when I first got into the racing business,” said team owner Curtis W. Key, Sr., who caught the Nationwide Series bug again last season and purchased four Chevrolets from the inventory that remained from the Ginn Racing/DEI merger.

“When I last competed in the Series I didn’t have a lot of money and faced an uphill battle from day one. But I talked to a lot of people and learned some valuable lessons back then, so when I made the decision to get back into the Series last year, I knew what I needed to do to be competitive and finally succeed,” explained Key who has competed in 88 Nationwide Series covering those six campaigns beginning in 1993.

Key’s reason for optimism is the way the race car performed in its initial test at RIR in late March, all under the guidance and direction of Tommy Morgan, Key’s Director of Competition and now the Crew Chief of the organization’s Nationwide Series program.

Morgan was the Crew Chief in the late 1990’s at Roush Racing when Jeff Burton was dominating the Series and winning races, so he certainly knows a lot of things….most of which he has brought to the table for Key’s latest Nationwide Series project.

“The car really did well in that Richmond test, and having someone behind the wheel with the level of experience and success in this Series that a Jeff Green has certainly was a major factor,” Morgan said. Green was driving a car he had never been in before, and Morgan was overseeing a race machine that had last competed in a handful of races in 2007 with Regan Smith the pilot.

“Things obviously started slowly for us at the test, but by the halfway mark of the second day, the #31 was running with some of the Series’ best race cars and drivers. Jeff gave us great feedback, and the more he ran the better he got. We know we have a good piece and just hope that we can catch some breaks to get into the race and then run every lap….hopefully competitive,” Morgan added.

“It’s a good race car, and Tommy certainly knows all the tricks of the trade,” commented Green, who last drove in the Series last season in a 3-race stint with Jay Robinson Racing. Before that, though, Green was a terror in the Series driving for several strong teams including ppc Racing, Richard Childress Racing and DEI. Green’s best years in the Nationwide Series came from 1999 to 2002 when he earned 15 of his 16 career victories, captured one championship (2000) for ppc Racing, finished second in driver points twice (1999 and 2001) also at ppc Racing and had an average start and finishing mark of no worse than 10th place over an amazing span of 108 races.

“We are thrilled that Jeff was available and then agreed to drive for us,” Key exclaimed. “He is certainly an experienced driver, and he really helped us get this race car ready. If everything goes well at Richmond, my early plan is to also run the races at Darlington and Charlotte in May. That should give us a pretty good barometer as to where we stand and just how competitive we can be in this Series,” Key ended.

In the 88 previous Nationwide Series races in which a Key Motorsports car has competed, all as Fords and with All-Star caliber drivers behind the wheel in a good number of them, the team chalked up one top 5, six top 10, 9 top 15 and 17 top 20 finishes. Amongst the drivers that Key had hired to drive for him in the past were former Nationwide Series champions Tommy Ellis, Chuck Bown and Larry Pearson; Sprint Cup Series star Jeff Burton; late NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series titlist Bobby Hamilton, and many-time ASA Late Model kingpin Kevin Cywinski.