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News:

BRIGHT RACES TO 7TH IN FIRST NZ V8 SUPERCAR BATTLE

19/4/2005 14:00 (Press Release) - Ford Performance Racing (FPR) drivers Jason Bright and Greg
Ritter have finished 7th and 20th in today's action packed 36 lap V8
Supercar race at Auckland's Pukekohe Park Raceway.

Starting from 9th on the grid, Bright raced his CAT FPR Falcon into the
early lead of the race by the 10th lap, aided in part by competitor pitstops
along with some aggressive overtaking. The Victorian driver made his
compulsory pit stop on lap 23, changing rear tyres and setting off in
pursuit of the top five. Displaying consistent speed throughout the
remainder of the race, a series of on track incidents and a close multi-lap
battle with Holden driver Paul Radisich held the FPR driver's progress to
7th by the end of the 36 laps.

Starting from 31st on the grid, Greg Ritter leap frogged his Ford Credit FPV
Falcon two positions at the green light and had progressed to 11th after 10
laps - aided by competitor pit stops. Ritter made his compulsory pit stop
for two rear tyres on lap 17
and continued strongly to finish the race in 20th place.

The race was won by Holden driver Greg Murphy, closely followed by Ford's
Russell Ingall and Mark Skaife in a Holden. Steven Ellery (Ford), Marcos
Ambrose (Ford) and Paul Radisich (Holden) made up the top six.

#6 Jason Bright - "The car was the best that it has been all weekend during
the race. We had some good early pace on my first set of tyres and we stayed
on that set as long as we could to try and take full advantage of a better
set later in the run to the end of the race. Unfortunately after our pit
stop things didn't go our way on the track. I'm happy with the progress that
we have made this weekend - it has been second to none in terms of the gains
we have made since yesterday."

#5 Greg Ritter - "We made a number of good changes to the car that I took
full advantage of during the race and it was enjoyable to make my way past
one third of the field. It is our intention to repeat this effort during the
next two races tomorrow. There was quite a bit of door banging going on but
overall I had a pretty clean race and I am really looking forward to
tomorrow."

FPR Chief Engineer, Phil Keed - "Both cars have improved a great deal from
the start of the weekend and that was a great race. We thought that we could
have finished a bit higher than 7th with Jason but there were a few
incidents that affected us. It was excellent to see Greg gain so many
positions. Both drivers have gained better starting positions for tomorrow
so we are looking forward to the two races ahead. We keep building on our
performance throughout the weekend."

FPR returns to Auckland's Pukekohe Park Raceway tomorrow for two 50 lap
races starting at 12:05pm (10:05am EST) and 4:30pm (2:30pm EST).


Release Date: 16/04/2005

Ford Performance Racing