SPEED Teams with Dale Jr.’s JR Motorsports

SPEED has teamed with JR Motorsports to develop SPEED 1, a fleet of race-ready demonstration cars to give viewers an unprecedented inside look at how cars will actually behave at each NASCAR Nextel Cup Series event in 2007.

“We wanted to do more than cruise around the track in an old show car," said Hunter Nickell, SPEED Executive VP & General Manager. “We want to take viewers and fans as inside as we can get them with real equipment. If we do our job right, SPEED is not just telling viewers what’s going on, we’re showing them. By creating the SPEED 1 program, we will give the viewers an opportunity to watch a race like they’ve never watched it before."

The SPEED 1 fleet, including superspeedway cars, intermediate track cars and the Car of Tomorrow, will be driven by NASCAR drivers Jimmy Spencer and Kenny Wallace, for features on SPEED’s NASCAR Nextel Cup Series pre-race show NASCAR RaceDay- Built by The Home depot. The entire fleet will be on display at JR Motorsports and moved around the country by JKS Motorsports.

“It’s an honor to have SPEED select us as the team to work with on this project," said Steve Crisp, Director of Motorsports at JR Motorsports. “We’re really excited to be involved, along with Richard Childress Racing, JKS, Chevrolet and Goodyear. They’re all great partners in this effort."

“We will have multiple cars on the track with multiple camera angles, demonstrating not only what the preferred line is around a particular venue, but what it’s like to pass, what it’s like to get in and out of the pits and what it takes to win a NASCAR Nextel Cup Series race," Nickell added. “We will certainly give a lot of attention to the Car of Tomorrow, giving viewers a true understanding of NASCAR’s much-talked-about project aimed at making racing safer and more competitive."

The SPEED1 superspeedway car, complete with a Richard Childress engine, arrived in Daytona for the big race weekend, with Wallace breaking in the fleet.

“I was surprised to get behind the wheel of Speed 1 earlier today and find it so fast … it handled so well," Wallace said after reaching speeds in excess of 190 mph testing the SPEED 1 superspeedway car. “This is a real race car with Richard Childress horsepower and I’m looking forward to running it this year. The SPEED 1 superspeedway car is the one that Jeff Burton ran at Talladega last year. In fact, I’ve asked SPEED if I can put my sponsor Furniture Row on it and race it there in April."

Broadcast Sports Technology (BST) will provide the on-board cameras and Sportvision will provide telemetry.