BACE Teams Up with Special Olympics Virginia at RIR

Special Olympian Paul Marretti to serve as Honorary Crew Chief for the No. 74 Winston Cup Team

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (May 1, 2003) - Look for an extra man atop the box this weekend in the BACE Motorsports Winston Cup pit as Special Olympics athlete and ambassador, Paul Marretti serves as honorary crew chief for NASCAR Winston Cup driver Tony Raines. The No. 74 BACE Motorsports Chevrolet will carry the Special Olympics Virginia logo on its hood when Raines makes his first NASCAR Winston Cup Series start at the .75-mile Richmond International Raceway on Saturday night.

Marretti, a member of the Special Olympics Virginia Board of Directors as an athlete representative, is presently serving a two-year term as a Sargent Shriver Global Messenger. In this position, he has traveled to Canada, Peru and many US cities representing the interests of Special Olympics athletes. Marretti, 27, will tour Ireland in June as part of the Special Olympics World Games. He began as a basketball player and soon expanded to other sports, including bowling, tennis, soccer, skiing, softball, track, golf and swimming. Joining Marretti at RIR this weekend will be Special Olympics Virginia President, Rick Jeffrey.

Tony Raines, who will pilot both the No. 74 Special Olympics Virginia Chevrolet (NWC) and the No. 33 Outdoor Channel Chevrolet (NBS) this weekend, talks about running double duty under the lights and his new head wrench for the weekend:

Double duty under the lights at Richmond... "We've had some really good runs here in the Busch car in the past couple of years. I've finished second here which is a career best for me in the Busch Series and in the fall race last year we ended up in the top five. We know that we have the capability to run strong here in both cars. We're looking for a good run in The Outdoor Channel Chevrolet on Friday night because we've had a tough time of it lately on the intermediate tracks. We ran second at Bristol in the Busch car so we'd like to bring some of the same short track good fortune we found there to Richmond this weekend."

"In the same breath, we haven't had a good performance, judged by our standards, on a short track in the Cup car. In Bristol, we lost an engine and then we struggled all day at Martinsville so we'd obviously like to go out and run solid Saturday night. A good night for us would be to take the checkered flag somewhere in the top-20. Our goals have stayed the same for the first half of the season and that's to make all of the races and run all the laps. We're still looking for that first top-15 finish of the season and if we can stay out of trouble on Saturday, Richmond might be the place to do it."

On Honorary Crew Chief, Special Olympian Standout Paul Marretti ... "Who knows, (crew chief) Larry (Carter) better be careful or Paul just might come in and take over this deal? No, seriously it will be an honor to have Paul in our pits on Saturday night. I'm really looking forward to meeting him. I have heard that he is a very talented athlete in a lot of sports but that he started out playing basketball, which I enjoy playing as well so maybe I'll have him give me some tips when I meet him. I've heard he's a big NASCAR fan so I'm glad that he'll be able to have one of the best seats in the house at one of the most exciting tracks that we run at all year."