Blueprint Racing/ Jimmy Kite-- Radisson 200 Advance Notes and Quotes

 BLUEPRINT RACING TEAM NOTES
Big Daddy's BBQ/ Founders Bank/ Blueprint Racing Special
Radisson 200
Pikes Peak International Raceway
JUNE 16-18, 2000
www.blueprintracing.com


Car Name: #27 Big Daddy's BBQ/ Founders Bank/ Blueprint Racing Special

Chassis: 1999 G Force (chassis # GF 030)
Engine: Oldsmobile Aurora (90 degree crank) built by Blueprint
Racing
Engines
Tires: Firestone Firehawk Racing radials
Entrant: Blueprint Racing Enterprises, LLC
Owners: Ed Rachanski and Keith Sanders


* Jimmy Kite made his Indy Racing Northern Light Series debut at Pikes Peak International Raceway (PPIR) June 29, 1997. Kite set fast-lap for the event on lap 15 at 167.715 mph. Starting ninth he eventually finished 20th after making contact with the turn-four wall on lap 39.

* Blueprint Racing has direct ties with the Colorado Springs' area. Chief mechanic and right-front tire changer Randy Ruyle is a longtime resident of Cascade, Colorado. Randy lives in the shadow of Pikes Peak with his wife Linda and their two children, Nicholas and Caroline. The avid hunter and fisherman also operates Ruyle Race Services, which Randy has owned since 1992, in the area. Through Ruyle Racing Services, Randy works with a midget program which races almost weekly in Colorado. He also owns a hill climb car that competes in seven races a year, including the historic Pikes Peak Hill Climb.

Layne Covert, mechanic and air jack/vent-man for the team, is from Colorado Springs where he works as a builder of custom homes. A former motorcycle racer, Layne is highly invovled with his children's activities in the community as well. His daughter, Jessi (14), is a competition-swimmer
and son Taylor is a hockey player.

The newest member of the team, Mike Ernest, is from Denver. Mike works as the team's data acquisition engineer. He operates his own network and Internet consulting firm, DriversMeeting.com, for small and medium-sized companies out of his Denver offices.

* Blueprint Racing engine manager Sonny Meyer built the race-winning engine for the inaugural Radisson 200 in 1997. Tony Stewart drove the car to victory with an average speed of 100.128 mph.

* Blueprint Racing has competed in only one Radisson 200 despite its involvement with the Indy Racing Northern Light Series since the series' inaugural event in 1996. The sole Pikes Peak race came in 1999 with driver Tyce Carlson. Running as Blueprint-Immke, Carlson started fifth but would finish 20th after an opening lap incident. The team took away only $33,000 for the race.

The team had planned to compete in 1997 but that effort, with Jim Guthrie, ended when a tire went down in practice. The resulting accident ended the weekend for Blueprint Racing prior to qualifying.

* Blueprint Racing has nicknamed the engine that Kite drove at Texas, "Timex." The powerplant first saw action, with a slightly different tuning, at the Indianapolis 500 on Pole morning. In qualifications the car spun into the wall on its first lap destroying the team's primary Big Daddy's BBQ 2000 G Force. The engine was then re-tuned and taken to Texas Motor Speedway where it was run in Blueprint Racing's newest 2000 G Force. Following a mechanical failure on the chassis, the car skidded down the
front straightaway on fire. The engine was removed, inspected, cleaned-up and installed on the 1999 back-up G Force for the Texas event where Kite raved about its power. The engine known as "Timex" definitely knows how to "take a licking and keep on ticking."

* Many of the Big Daddy's BBQ/ Blueprint Racing crewmembers took the early part of the week between the Casino Magic 500 and the Radisson 200 to drive up to Colorado Springs instead of flying. Several, including team manager Brad McCanless and owner Keith Sanders, took family with them to
enjoy a small vacation during the most-heated part of the Indy Racing Northern Light Series schedule.

* Father's Day is a special day for Blueprint Racing as many of the team members come from racing families.

Louis "Sonny" Meyer, Jr. is the son of legendary race driver and three-time Indianapolis 500 Louis Meyer. William "Bill" Bignotti is the son of seven-time Indianapolis 500-winning mechanic George Bignotti. Ed Rachanski's father was a successful Chicago-area mechanic and his sons, Ed
Jr. and Mike, are key members of Blueprint Racing. Young-mechanic Cade Southall had his father, Terry, is a longtime racer in Australia. Driver Jimmy Kite's father, Gary, is a former race mechanic for Gordon Johncock and has attended every event his son has competed in. Brad McCanless'
father, Jack, can be seen regularly at the race track with the team as can co-owner Keith Sander's father, Joe, and father-in-law, Lyle Campbell.

Team sponsorship is a father-son-grandson effort as well. Big Daddy's BBQ Racing was founded and is directed by Dan Lloyd Sr. Dan Lloyd Jr. is his father's right-hand man and Dan Lloyd III is being groomed to take over Big Daddy's BBQ Racing in the future.

Several of the Blueprint Racing team members plan to spend at least some of Sunday's Father's Day holiday with their children. Expected to be at the event are McCanless' children; Cameron and Connor, Randy Ruyle's children; Nicholas and Caroline, Keith Sander's four daughters; Natalie,
Monica, Olivia and Patricia as well as his father, Layne Covert's kids; Jessi and Taylor and Ed Rachanski's boys; Ed Jr. and Mike.

* In two Pikes Peak events in 1999 the duo of Kite and McCanless had two solid performances. In last season's Radisson 200, held June 27, Kite qualified 10th (at 173.435 mph) and finished 15th, still running at the checkered flag, taking home $37,400. In the second event, held August 29,
Kite qualified 16th (at a speed of 171.928 mph) and raced up to eighth, his highest finish of the season, earning $44,500.

* Blueprint Racing started 23rd- starting positions were based on entrant points- and finished 16th with a 1999 G Force chassis in the Casino Magic 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on June 11th. The Texas  race, on a 1.5 mile oval, is the most recent event contested on the Indy Racing Northern Light Series.

* The last one-mile oval in which Blueprint Racing competed on was the famous Phoenix International Raceway. The event marked the first race that driver Jimmy Kite was with the team. The Big Daddy's BBQ/ Founders Bank/Blueprint Racing Special started 14th and finished 26th, falling out on lap-14 with an electrical failure.

* Despite heavy accidents suffered with the two 2000 G Force chassis the team had purchased this season, Blueprint Racing expects to have two 2000 G Force chassis-with Blueprint Racing Engines- ready for competition at Atlanta Motor Speedway on July 15th. Both cars are entered for driver Jimmy Kite with Brad McCanless listed as team manager/engineer and Randy Ruyle as chief mechanic.

* News and notes on Blueprint Racing can be found at www.BlueprintRacing.com.

* The name of the #27 Blueprint Racing entry is now officially the Big Daddy's BBQ/ Founders Bank/ Blueprint Racing Special.

* Saturday, May 20th, Blueprint Racing announced that Big Daddy's BBQ Racing had joined the team for four and a half years. The sponsorship began immediately.

* Big Daddy's BBQ Racing, of Yukon, Oklahoma, is the parent company to several subsidiaries, which include a beer division-Big Daddy's Backyard Brew- meatpacking, root beer, and the sauce and spice division. The publicly held company trades under the OTC ticker 'BIGD.' More information is available on the company at www.bigdaddysbbq.com.

* Blueprint Racing is one of only three Indy Racing Northern Light Series teams currently building their own engines. Blueprint Racing Engines  is led by Ed Rachanski, Sonny Meyer and Frank Russo. Legendary drag racer and engine designer John Farkonas designs many of the internal engine
components for Blueprint Racing's Oldsmobile Indy V8 Aurora engines.


BLUEPRINT RACING PRE-EVENT QUOTES

Big Daddy's BBQ/ Founders Bank/ Blueprint Racing Special
Radisson 200
Pikes Peak International Raceway
JUNE 16-18, 2000
www.blueprintracing.com


Jimmy Kite, driver

About going to PPIR
"I'm glad to be going back to Pikes Peak with Big Daddy's BBQ, Founders Bank and Blueprint Racing. I had my best finish here last year. It is probably my favorite one-mile oval on the circuit. I always have a lot of fun when I come here and I usually run pretty well. This would be the perfect place to get my first win in the Northern Light Series since it is where I had my first run in an Indy Racing car."

About this being the final one-mile oval of the Indy Racing Northern Light Series 2000 season 
"It's a shame that we are already so far into the season that this is our last one-mile oval. I love the one-milers but we are in my favorite time of the year since we are left with the 1.5 mile ovals."

About his luck and the luck of the Big Daddy's BBQ/ Founders Bank/Blueprint Racing team 
"It has been a tough year for the Big Daddy's BBQ crew up till now. We have a strong team, the best car in the G Force and a great engine program. We are just having the worse luck. Right now, I am not asking for good luck, I'm just asking for no more bad luck! Just no luck at all and we will get closer to where we know this Big Daddy's BBQ car should be."

About his physical preparations for running in the altitudes of Pikes Peak International Raceway
"I try to get out here a couple of days early. It helps you get use to the air so, that by race day, you don't feel a big difference in the thinner air. Still, at the end of the 200-miler at Pikes Peak, I'll probably be just as tired as I am after the 500k events."


Keith Sanders, co-owner
About his feelings going into PPIR;
"We are a little behind where we want to be due to the accidents with the 2000 cars. However, we are back to finishing races and that is what we needed to do. We need to improve on our performance from Texas at Colorado and I think we'll be able to do that. The '99 shouldn't be as big of a disadvantage to the 2000 cars at Pikes Peak as it was at Texas. We'll have our 2000 cars back by Atlanta for Jimmy's hometown race."


Brad McCanless, team manager and engineer
About the Radisson 200 race weekend;
"We are at a little bit of a disadvantage with the 1999 G Force chassis going into the Pikes Peak event. However, the car won't be as big of a handicap here on the one-mile oval as it was at Texas. That isn't to say the '99 car isn't good, it is, it just isn't a 2000. We have to be pretty creative with our setups to give Jimmy a fast car that is also comfortable car to drive. That is harder to do when most of the competition is running the sleeker 2000 car. We hope to have our 2000 Big Daddy's BBQ G Forces back running at Atlanta and that is where we will really need them."


Randy Ruyle, chief mechanic - About his feelings of racing in-front of his hometown crowd;
"It'll be fun to have my family there, my kids. They just named the suites after my father-in-law, Nick Samborn, so that will make it special too. It'll probably mean more after the race than right now. I have never had much luck there. We've always had a fast car but we never seem to get the finish. It's a very nice track."


Frank Russo, Blueprint Racing Engines - About preparing an engine for the high-altitude of Pikes Peak International Raceway;
"We've built up the motor to compensate for the higher altitude. We think what we have done will make up the horsepower difference. We will also adjust for the day. We could get there and the barometric pressure could make it the equivalent of 3,000 feet above the already naturally high altitude or it could go the other way. We deal with that sort of thing everyday we go racing. Pikes Peak just makes it more dramatic. Sonny [Meyer, Blueprint Racing engine manager] has been back at the shop in  Chicago building up our engines for Colorado and we all feel we have a  great engine to go into the race with."


###


** Editors, please do not publish any contact information other than web sites. Thank you **

Contact: 
Tom Moore, Blueprint Racing Enterprises, LLC Public Relations Coordinator
770-784-7031 (phone), 770-784-9815 (fax), 404-229-3703 (cell)

Tom@BlueprintRacing.com (email)

www.blueprintracing.com

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