Bill Lester No. 23
Waste Management Event Preview
Michigan International Speedway
3M PERFORMANCE 400 NEWS AND NOTES
Back for Another Round…Bill Lester hopes to make his second career NASCAR Nextel Cup Series start this weekend at Michigan International Speedway. His first start came earlier this season at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Ricky Viers, who handles research and development at Bill Davis Racing, will again serve as Lester’s crew chief. Waste Management sponsored the team in its first outing at Atlanta and will sponsor the team again this weekend and in the September event at California Speedway.
Doing Double Duty… Lester will also be behind the wheel of his usual ride, the No. 22 Toyota Tundra, in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event Saturday afternoon.
This Week’s Ride…The No. 23 Waste Management Car that will be utilized this weekend is chassis No. 85 and is a former No. 22 Caterpillar car. This is the first time this particular car will see action this year.
Lester’s Michigan Stats…Though Lester has not made a NEXTEL Cup start on the two-mile Brooklyn, Mich., track, he has been successful at the venue in the Craftsman Truck Series. Since his first start at MIS in 2002, Lester has posted a pair of top-five qualifying efforts. He has an average finish of 15th, has never finished outside the top 18 and has completed all of the laps in the races in which he has competed.
Don’t miss any of it …Qualifying for the NASCAR Nextel Cup 3M Performance 400 is scheduled to start at 3:10 p.m. ET Friday, June 16 and will broadcast LIVE on SPEED (TV), MRN (radio) and XM Satellite Radio Channel 144. The 400-mile event is scheduled to start at 1:40 p.m. ET Sunday, June 18, and will broadcast LIVE on FOX (TV), MRN and XM Satellite Radio Channel 144.
Bill Lester on Michigan…
“Hopefully, we got some of the hoopla out of the way during the Atlanta race, and this time around we can focus solely on the racing end of it. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated the opportunity and all of the attention I was getting from the media and the fans and am glad everyone was so interested and excited about the weekend, but this time around, I hope it will be a little bit more of a normal type of a weekend for everyone involved.
“I’ve always liked racing in Michigan and have been able to put together a couple of decent finishes in the past couple of years there in the Truck Series, so our confidence level as far as being able to have a little bit better race then we did in Atlanta is pretty high. We had the chance to take this car out and test it out a bit a while back, and I think it should be a pretty good car for us. We accomplished what we set out to do in Atlanta, which was first of all to qualify for the event and then finish the entire race, but we’ve got some loftier goals this time around that we’re hoping to accomplish.”
