Michael Marsal Ready to Make History at Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Michael Marsal Ready to Make History at Indianapolis Motor Speedway

INDIANAPOLIS (25 July 2012) – With a jump to top-level Prototypes, experience on a range of new tracks, and working with a new team, Michael Marsal has seen his racing resume go through an impressive growth spurt through the first half of the 2012 season. And that trend will only continue this week as he is set to race in the first-ever GRAND-AM race to be held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Marsal is not only contesting a full-time GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge effort with Turner Motorsport for the third consecutive season, but he also added a select schedule of American Le Mans Series outings in the high horsepower, high downforce Prototypes for Dyson Racing.

The 24-year-old racer, who opened the summer by graduating from college, isn’t slowing down anytime soon and will add another new experience – one that every race car driver dreams about – to his list this weekend as he takes his first official race laps at the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Staged as the opening act in the NASCAR Brickyard 400 weekend, GRAND-AM will utilize the 2.534-mile speedway road course on Friday. But with such a full card of action, the track sharing will be key as the track will condense the GRAND-AM running to just one intense day on Friday as the NASCAR Nationwide Series is set to run on Saturday and the Sprint Cup Series takes to the big stage on Sunday.

That day will in fact be a very busy one, with Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge practice, qualifying and the 2.5-hour race all taking place within seven and a half hours. There are 75 entries expected for the prestigious event, so Marsal and Turner Motorsport co-driver Boris Said (who made two Sprint Cup starts at the Speedway in 2005 & 2006) will be busy at the controls of their No. 97 BMW M3 as they take to the Indianapolis circuit which uses the infield road course as well as a portion of the famed oval.

Coming off of a 10th place result at Watkins Glen, the Turner duo will look to build on that effort. Marsal and Said tend to run well on the speedway road course configurations having already picked up sixth at Daytona and seventh at Homestead earlier this year. The pair hopes to become the first GRAND-AM drivers to kiss the famous Bricks with a win in the inaugural event.

“I’m so pumped to be racing at Indianapolis,” offered Marsal. “It’s really an incredible opportunity and I just can’t wait. The Turner guys had a great couple of days in Indy testing earlier this month and even though I’ll be trying to learn my way around as quickly as possible, I feel like having the Turner guys behind me will be huge. This is a new track for everyone, so the faster you can figure it out, the better. But of course we have very little time to do it! I hope that we put on a good show and that we have a good clean race and come out of the weekend with a big result.”

Friday kicks off with an hour-long practice session at 8:00 AM followed immediately by GS qualifying at 9:15 AM. The green flag will drop on the 2.5-hour Brickyard Sports Car Challenge at 1:00 PM (ET).

Live timing and scoring can be followed throughout the day at www.grand-am.com.

SPEED will televise the event on Sunday, August 5 at 12:00 PM (ET).

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Matt Cleary
Sunday Group Management
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