Race 2 Win: Kroger 200 - John Andretti Notes

NASCAR Busch Series

Kroger 200 - John Andretti Notes

John Andretti
No. 10 RVs.com/Camping World Ford Fusion
Kroger 200 benefiting Riley Hospital for Children/ O’Reilly Raceway Park
Saturday, August 5, 2006

ANDRETTI HEADS TO HOMETOWN FOR CHARITY AND FIRST RACE AT O’REILLY RACEWAY PARK

John Andretti has logged 10 starts at his hometown track, Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the Nextel Cup Series, but will mark his first ever Busch race on its sister track, O’Reilly Raceway Park, just a few miles away. The famous Andretti racing family hails from the Indianapolis area where father and uncle Aldo and Mario first made the Andretti name famous. John is excited to get back to his hometown and take on a new track.

Before all the racing action this Saturday night, Andretti will be spending his week giving back to his hometown community. Andretti founded the “Race for Riley” fundraiser to benefit Riley Hospital for Children, which is also the benefactor of Saturday’s race. The event, a go-kart race at a local track, is celebrating its 10th year on Wednesday, August 2nd.

The #10 is running a special deck lid this weekend signed by the young patients at Riley Hospital for Children. All ppc Racing entries will carry the “Race for Riley” logo including the #22 AutoZone Ford. The Ford Power Stroke Diesel by International race truck will also carry the logo in Friday night’s Craftsman Truck Series race.

The RVs.com/Camping World team is taking chassis #47 to ORP. This is the same car Andretti raced in Martinsville just two weeks ago when he brought home a season best finish of 7th.

Andretti is currently second in the Raybestos Rookie-of-the-Year point standings, just one point behind leader, Burney Lamar.

Holding steady in the 12th position in the Busch Series driver point standings, Andretti is just 129 points away from the 10th position, held by ppc Racing teammate, Kenny Wallace. The #10 team is 15th in series owner point standings.

ANDRETTI AT GATEWAY INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
Saturdays night’s running of the Kroger 200 benefiting Riley Hospital for Children will mark Andretti’s first Busch Series race at O’Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis. Despite his lack of race experience on the .686-mile oval, Andretti is confident the veteran team’s experience will spell success for the #10 ppc Racing Ford. In the six ORP races ppc Racing Busch teams have entered, they have finished in the top-10 seven times.

ANDRETTI ON THE KROGER 200 AND O’REILLY RACEWAY PARK
“I ran my first midget race outdoors at ORP a long, long time ago and ran second. Last year I drove a truck at there and only made about 20 laps and got taken out. I think ORP is one of those tracks where the racing groove is up top. It’s a track that’s real racing if you can the car doing what you want it to do. The hard part for me will be figuring out what a Busch car is supposed to do there. What you have to live with handling wise, and what you don’t have to live with. It’s the Kroger 200 benefiting Riley Hospital for Children, renamed last year in part because I have a charity event called the “Race for Riley” presented by Cheerios and Kroger has been involved in that for many years. I think it’s awesome to be tied to something like that. We just want to raise as much awareness for Riley as we can.”