Hot Racing in Miami at CarLoan.com 500

Sponsor Event Pits VIPs Against NASCAR Star Bill Lester

Bill Lester

Miami, FL (21 November 2006) – While fans nationwide watched Jimmie Johnson win his first Nextel Cup Championship this weekend, a select group of VIPs had an opportunity to do a lot more than watch as they got behind the wheel at a local karting track during race weekend in Miami and raced head-to-head against NASCAR star Bill Lester.

The event, hosted by NASCAR sponsor CarLoan.com, gave 30 guests the chance of a lifetime – to see what they could do against a professional racecar driver. The answer? When you race against the best, you’d better plan on coming in second. And while Lester easily showed why he makes his living behind the wheel of a race car (much of the time racing the 35mph karts using only one hand), the atmosphere was consistently fun and exhilarating for all involved.

“This was the chance of a lifetime,” said Marla Belson, a VIP guest from Sherman Dodge of Skokie, Illinois. “I can’t thank the CarLoan.com folks enough. Where else can you get on the track and race against a great man like Bill Lester?”

Mike O’Brien, representing Bill Currie Ford in Tampa, Florida agreed, “You watch the NASCAR drivers on TV and you think ‘I could do that’, and then you spend a little time racing with a guy like Bill (Lester) and you realize that they are driving at a totally different level. I had a great time, even as I watched Bill passing me.”

Bill Lester has been a full-time driver in NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series since 2002 and made NASCAR history earlier this year when he become the first African-American driver to race in the Nextel Cup Series in 25 years. Lester’s path to NASCAR racing fame has been very different from that of most drivers. Lester earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1984, and then joined the Hewlett-Packard Company where he worked for 16 years before pursuing his lifelong dream of being a professional racecar driver.

The CarLoan.com 500 was held Saturday evening at the Speed Demons Karting track in Florida City. The track, which opened a year ago, features two road-course layouts, high performance super-karts, VIP hospitality facilities and state of the art electronic scoring.