Race 2 Win: Dover 200 - Reed Sorenson Notes

NASCAR Busch Series

Dover 200 - Reed Sorenson Notes

Reed Sorenson, No. 41 Commit Cherry Dodge
Dover 200 – Dover International Speedway – 09.23.06

No. 41 Commit Cherry Team Fast Facts:

Seeing Red at Dover: Reed Sorenson and the No. 41 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (CGRFS) Busch team will run the No. 41 Commit Cherry Dodge this weekend at Dover International Speedway in the Dover 200 on Saturday. The special red paint scheme will represent the only cherry flavored stop-smoking aid that is a new line of the well-known GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Commit nicotine lozenges. The Commit Cherry lozenges tackle smoking cravings fast and keep working after the yearning ceases to help make quit smoking a little tastier. The special paint scheme is the fourth run of a five-race partnership between GSK and the CGRFS Busch team. One of the GSK stop smoking products—Nicorette, NicoDerm CQ and Commit—can be seen on board with Reed Sorenson every weekend as an associate sponsor, but Commit Cherry will take center stage on the No. 41 Dodge this Saturday. This is GSK’s second season as a sponsor of CGRFS. To learn more about the pharmaceutical company and its products, go to www.gsk.com.

Driving Force at Dover: In three Busch Series starts at Dover International Speedway, Sorenson has accumulated some impressive numbers. He has a top-10 starting average of eighth place and an average top-five finish of fifth place. Sorenson’s career best effort at the Monster Mile was a second-place finish in the June 2005 Busch race. His fourth-place finish in the fall Dover race last year scored him the NASCAR Busch Series Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors and marked the first top-five finish by a rookie in the fall race since 2001.

Sorenson Takes a Break to Help Educate: Next week, leading into the NASCAR competition at Kansas Speedway and another special paint scheme weekend featuring NicoDerm CQ, Sorenson is planning to visit a local middle school in the Kansas City, Mo., area to help GSK and the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids communicate the educational message about the dangers of smoking. He will also help recognize some students for their efforts in increasing prevention and education about nicotine addiction. Note: Please contact the CGRFS media relations department for more information.

Time to Quit: After a successful run with the CGRFS team last season, GSK launched a “QUIT CREW” program earlier this year that involves a smoking cessation initiative to help NASCAR team members quit smoking. In addition to stomping out the cigarettes inside the NASCAR garages, GSK also is on a mission to utilize its involvement with the popular motor sport to help increase awareness for millions of race fans about effective quit smoking therapy. Free quit smoking counseling and the No. 41 NicoDerm CQ race simulator have visited numerous NASCAR races this year and will be at Dover this weekend in the fan interaction display area just outside the speedway. To see a mix of quitting tools and to learn more about the QUIT CREW program, go to www.quit2win.com.

One-Year Anniversary: Roger Parkinson, a member of the No. 41 CGRFS Cup team, will be celebrating his one-year anniversary of being smoke free this Friday, September 22. Parkinson was an inaugural member of the CGRFS “QUIT Crew” pilot program in 2005 and quit with the aid of Commit lozenges.

Top-10 Team: The No. 41 CGRFS Busch team took this past weekend off, along with the rest of the NASCAR Busch Series teams, and is now heading to Dover International Speedway on a high note after its most recent run at Richmond International Raceway (RIR) on Friday, September 8. Sorenson and the No. 41 team dodged multiple wrecks and rebounded from a mid-race penalty that Friday night to turn their top-10 start into a top-five finish at RIR. Best of all, the driver and team took two steps forward in the NASCAR Busch Series championship standings, moving up to 10th place overall. Sorenson is just 67 points behind ninth-place Johnny Sauter in the driver standings, while the team is just five points out of ninth in the owner ranks.

On the Cup Side: Sorenson and the No. 41 Target Team finished 17th at New Hampshire International Speedway this past Sunday. They held on to their 22nd spot in the point standings and are 67 points out of 20th and 193 out of 15th in the NEXTEL Cup ranks. Sorenson also held on to his third-place position in the Raybestos Rookie of the Year ranks. Sorenson has captured rookie of the race honors in five of the 27 races run thus far in ’06 (Atlanta – 10th, Martinsville – 12th, Michigan – fifth, Chicagoland – seventh, Michigan 2 - eighth).

Chassis: The No. 41 team will race chassis #453 at the Monster Mile this weekend. Sorenson and team most recently ran the car at Phoenix International Raceway in April when the CGRFS Busch team put forth an all around impressive run that resulted in a second-place finish (started fifth). Before that, the chassis helped the team soar to its second victory at Gateway International Raceway (Madison, Ill.) in July 2005, which is the team’s most recent visit to the winner’s circle to-date.

Sorenson comments on heading back to Dover International Speedway:
“It fells good to break back inside the top 10. I don’t think we’ve been in there since February or March. The kind of luck we’ve had this year made it seem almost unattainable to get where we are now, but we did it and there is still more ground to gain before the season ends.

“The last time we were at Dover, we brought the same setup to the track that we ran there in 2005 and got two top-five finishes, but it felt like we were almost starting all over again in June. Brian [Pattie] and the guys got the car dialed in and helped us get a lot better finish than I thought we would.

“I was also battling some side pain the last time I raced at Dover. MRO [Motor Racing Outreach] helped get me ready to go and the pain subsided as the race progressed. I definitely feel pretty good going into this weekend’s run and we’re taking a good car that helped us score a second-place finish at Phoenix earlier this year. We figured a lot out in the spring so hopefully we’ll be able to capitalize on all of that to get that first win we’ve been hunting for all year.”