MOORESVILLE, N.C. (September 25, 2002) -  The boxscore from the NASCAR racing weekend at Dover reports that Tony Raines finished 11^th and 31^st respectively in the NASCAR Busch Series and Winston Cup events held at The Monster Mile - on the surface, those cold, hard facts portray a mediocre day for BACE Motorsports.

But, sometimes the "bottom line" is misleading when a closer look reveals.

	As the Busch Series race approached the 70-lap mark, Raines consistently posted the quickest circuits in the field, erasing a two-second lead as he charged to the bumper of leader Jeff Green.
	Raines held fast to the top-5 for 70 more laps, doggedly pursuing his first Busch Series win until the BACE Chevrolet developed a loose handling condition that dropped him to 11th at the line.
	Starting the Winston Cup event from the 42nd position, BACE turned Saturday laps into Sunday progress, with Raines piloting the Staff America Chevrolet into the top-20 in 130 laps -consistently clicking off times in the top-15 as he worked his way through traffic.

Even in the Busch Series, it takes near perfection to come home with a win or a top-five finish, and the boys from BACE are on the right path - posting four top-5 and seven top-10 finishes in the past 12 races.  The torrid pace they've set since Kentucky (6.15) includes just one finish outside the top-20 - a stretch that vaulted BACE from 18^th to 11^th in the Busch Series points standings

"During the summer run here in the Busch Series, we've made great strides as a team," Raines stated.  "We've returned to the point where a top-five is the norm for us rather than a novelty, and we're hungry to turn it up another notch by scoring my first Busch Series win - and returning the Baumgardner's to Victory Lane.  We were knocking on the door in Dover last weekend, but that's no longer enough.  It will take a victory for this team to consider this season a total success."

 "On the Cup side, it's easy for our building progress to get overlooked in the shuffle during this amazing championship race," Raines said.  "We've done our best to use the knowledge gained as a top level Busch Series team to help flatten the learning curve in Winston Cup.  It's a 'Crawl, Walk, Run' philosophy we've employed, and Dover provided us two benchmarks this season.  Our goal when we came to Dover in the spring was just to qualify (Raines started 17^th in his Winston Cup debut).  This past weekend we weren't looking just to compete - we wanted to be competitive," he stressed.  Running from the rear of the field to the top-20 like that gave this team the kind of confidence boost that reinforces the belief that we're on the right path in a lot of ways."

A series of personnel changes midway through BACE's first foray into Winston Cup led ownership to the conclusion that their best hope of a progressive effort in NASCAR's top series lay in their own backyard.  With the spotlight focused solely on Raines, the program has begun to gel, with the next goal a competitive run for BACE at Kansas Speedway - another double-duty weekend.

"We've placed our entire focus on Tony as the foundation of our Winston Cup future and have full confidence in his ability to deliver the high expectations we have of our program," said team owner, Bill Baumgardner.  "Tony is currently in the first year of a three year deal that solidifies him as the cornerstone of our racing team.  That long-range commitment greatly enhances our ability to maintain the chemistry that's so critical to building a premier program at this level of competition, and attract the additional personnel and corporate partnerships that are the lifeblood of racing in Winston Cup."