MICHIGAN PREVIEW

EVENT: Alliance Truck Parts 250 (125 laps / 250 miles)
TRACK: Michigan International Speedway
LENGTH: 2-mile oval
DATE: Saturday, June 16, 2012
TV: ABC (Coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. EST)
RADIO: MRN (3:15 p.m. EST)

Cole Whitt

“We’re coming off a couple of races where our results could have been a lot better. Fortunately, we had a week to get everything in order and we’re looking forward to turning our performance around at Michigan this weekend. This is the beginning of a long stretch of races, so it’s going to be important that we start putting consistent finishes together again.

“I’m excited about our car this week. It’s the same car we had a Darlington and it was a good piece. It had a lot of speed during practice but we had a mishap in qualifying and had to roll out the backup car, so we never got to see how it raced.”

JRM AT MICHIGAN –JR Motorsports teams have scored top-10 finishes in half of its races at Michigan International raceway (five top-10s in 10 events). The team also led its first laps in Nationwide Series competition at the facility in 2006 (Robby Gordon) and scored its seventh career victory there in 2009 (Brad Keselowski).STRING OF SUCCESS – In its first seven races at Michigan (2006-10), JR Motorsports finished seventh or better in all but two events (and no worse than 13th). It was a hot start for the upstart company at the two-mile facility, and it was capped with a victory in 2009 by Brad Keselowski in the No. 88 GoDaddy.com car. Keselowski, a Michigan native, was in third on the last lap when he made a three-wide pass of Brian Vickers and Kyle Busch to win. Vickers and Busch had combined to lead 110 of 125 laps that day. Keselowski led only three but was the driver to hoist the trophy.

CHASSIS INFO FOR WHITT – The 88 team brings chassis number 626 for Whitt at Michigan. Whitt drove this chassis at Bristol and the team unloaded it Darlington earlier this year.

THE COAL AND COLE SHOW – Michigan is the second of four races with The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) as primary sponsor of Cole Whitt’s No. 88 Chevrolet. ACCCE is a non-profit, non-partisan partnership of companies involved in producing electricity from coal. ACCCE supports energy policies that balance coal’s vital role in meeting our country’s growing need for affordable and reliable electricity with the need to protect the environment. ACCCE will sponsor JRM’s No. 88 team in races at Iowa (Aug. 4) and Kentucky (Sept. 22). For more information, visit www.americaspower.org.

JUNIOR FOR CLEAN COAL – Clean Coal’s YouTube channel — which features a wide selection of educational and informative videos — now features videos from Dale Earnhardt Jr. You can find ACCCE’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/americaspower. Videos can also be found on its Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/americaspower.

A RACE TO REMEMBER – The 2006 season marked the first full-time campaign for JR Motorsports in the Nationwide Series, and the Aug. 19th race at Michigan was one to remember. In his first of two races with JRM, Robby Gordon led 11 laps and could’ve earned the company its first victory if not for one competitor — Dale Earnhardt Jr. The JRM owner drove a Chevrolet for Dale arnhardt Inc. (DEI) that day and was racing Gordon, Casey Mears and Carl Edwards for the victory on a restart with two laps to go. Contact from Earnhardt Jr. spun Edwards while Gordon and Mears scattered to take evasive action. Junior crossed the line first, while Gordon finished third for JR Motorsports.

WHITT VISITS CLEAN COAL DISPLAY –Whitt will visit the Clean Coal display, located in the Michigan International Speedway fan concourse area, on Friday, June 15 at 4:30 p.m. EST and again on Saturday, June 16 at 1:30 p.m. EST. Whitt will be signing autographs and participating in question and answer sessions with fans.SECOND CHANCE TO WIN DALE JR.’S RIDE – The Dale Jr. Foundation is raffling off Dale Jr.’s 2011 Chevrolet Camaro. Raffle tickets are $25 and only 8,888 will be sold. The winner will be invited to JR Motorsports, where Dale Jr. will personally hand over the keys of the car to the winner. Visit www.WinDaleJrsRide.com for more information.