CAT RACING EVENT PREVIEW
CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY
SONY HD 500
FONTANA NEWS AND NOTES
FONTANA’S MACHINE… The No. 22 Caterpillar car scheduled to compete in the Sony HD 500 at California Speedway this weekend is the same car Blaney drove to a 17th-place finish at Chicagoland Speedway in July.
BRISTOL REWIND…On Friday, Bill Davis Racing announced that Blaney would return for another year in the yellow-and-black Cat car in 2007. Blaney then qualified in the 22nd spot and raced to the team’s second-best finish of the season on the half-mile oval in Bristol, Tenn.
BLANEY’S CAREER STATS…Blaney will make his 224th career NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series start when the green flag waves Sunday evening. He made his first career NASCAR Cup Series start in October 1992 at [Rockingham] North Carolina Speedway. Blaney drove his Bill Davis Racing-owned machine to a 38th-place finish after qualifying 17th for his first start in Fontana in 2000.
BACK FOR ANOTHER…Blaney has made seven NEXTEL Cup Series starts on the two-mile California Speedway and has earned two top-15 finishes. He has qualified in the top 20 three times. The veteran driver has also competed in two NASCAR Busch Series events on the track, finishing as high as 18th. The last time the No. 22 team visited California, it had a tight-handling race car that finished 30th in the race.
BDR AT CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY…Competitors driving Bill Davis Racing-owned cars have been racing in Fontana since the track opened in 1997 and have made 17 starts. Those drivers have posted two top-10 finishes and have started inside the top 10 twice.
CAT SALUTES THE TROOPS…Caterpillar is one of several sponsors this weekend that has worked with California Speedway on its Salute to the Troops project. Caterpillar has purchased 100 tickets to Sunday’s event that the track will distribute to active duty service people.
A LOOK BACK...Members of the Antique Caterpillar Machinery Owners Club (ACMOC) will be on hand this weekend at California Speedway and will have with them several pieces of vintage Caterpillar equipment for display. ACMOC is an International Club of more than 3,000 members whose purpose is to support restoration of antique Caterpillar machinery (circa 1925 to 1960) and to preserve Caterpillar history.
Included in the Cat equipment that will be on display will be a 1939 Cat D7, a 1944 Le Tourneau Model M Carryall and a 1917 Holt 75, which was acquired from the Goldstrike Casino in Boulder, Nev., where it had been used to develop some of the early casinos in Las Vegas and surrounding areas.
BRING YOUR SHARPIE…Blaney is scheduled to make another stop at the Caterpillar merchandise trailer Saturday at 4 p.m. to meet fans and sign autographs. Swing by the merchandise trailer for updates and more information.
CALIFORNIA’S BROADCAST SCHEDULE…Qualifying for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Sony HD 500 is scheduled to start at 6:40 p.m. ET Friday, Sept. 1. The 250-lap event is scheduled to start at 8:05 p.m. ET Sunday, Sept. 3, and will broadcast LIVE on NBC (TV), MRN and XM Satellite Radio Channel 144.
DAVE BLANEY ON FONTANA…
“We’ve struggled a bit at these bigger tracks this season, so we’re hoping we can hit on something this weekend that might help us at these types of places for the rest of the year and into next season. We’re a stronger team than we were the first time we came to this place earlier this year, and that should help us, obviously. I think we’re all looking forward to getting to Fontana. We know we’ve got a pretty good car to work with anyway, so we’ll have to see what happens once we get there.”
