TOUGH BREAK FOR LONG & TEAM 70 AT TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY

Coming off of several strong finishes and a solid run at Daytona back in February, Johanna Long had high hopes going into Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series event at Talladega Superspeedway. Unfortunately, Long’s quest for a strong finish ended early as she encountered overheating due to damage to the grill on Lap 19, which lead to a 37th-place finish at Talladega.

 “It’s unfortunate for the whole team that we had problems early on and had damage to the grill opening which kept air from cooling the engine. The ML Motorsports team brought a fast car to the track we just battled with the overheating issue at the beginning of the race. I hate it for our Foretravel Motorcoach Chevrolet team, but we will just come back stronger at Iowa in a couple of weeks. I love Iowa Speedway and have had some really good runs at that track, so it should be a good race for us.”

The ML Motorsports team will take a week off and will get back to racing action at Iowa Speedway on May 20 for the Pioneer Hi-Bred 250. The NASCAR Nationwide Series event will be aired live on ABC with race coverage beginning at 1:30 pm EST. Fans can also listen live on MRN Radio as well as Sirius Satellite Radio, channel 90.

PRACTICE:

Talladega, AL - Johanna Long posted a laptime of 53.32 seconds (179.61 mph) before a hole in the oil cooler forced her out of the car while the team made repairs. Long was 27th overall on the leaderboard during the only practice session at Talladega Superspeedway.

Kyle Busch was at the top of the leaderboard followed by Kurt Busch, Sam Hornish, Jr., Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. and Michael Annett in the top five.

Race coverage begins at 3:00 pm on Saturday, May 5th and will be broadcast on ABC.

QUALIFYING UPDATE:

Talladega, AL - Rain Thursday forced NASCAR to cancel all on track activity. They decided to cancel qualifying and have a single Friday session Friday when qualifying was scheduled to be held. Johanna Long will start 24th in the Aaron's 312 at Talladega Superspeedway. Elliott Sadler will start from the pole. He will be followed by Ricky Stenhousr, Jr., Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Austin Dillon, Brad Sweet, Jame Buescher, Sam Hornish, Jr., Brad Keselowski and Michael Annett.

TALLADEGA NOTES:

Johanna Long and the ML Motorsports team will return to racing action on Saturday, May 5 for the Aaron’s 312 at Talladega Superspeedway. The NASCAR Nationwide Series event will be aired live on ABC with race coverage beginning at 3:00 pm EST. Fans can also listen live on MRN Radio as well as Sirius Satellite Radio, channel 90.

Talladega Superspeedway – 19-year-old Long will make her second start at the 2.66-mile track of Talladega Superspeedway.  Her first start took place last season in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series where she registered a 16th-place finish.

Johanna on Talladega – “Since racing at Daytona back in February, I’ve really started to take a liking to superspeedway racing and am anxious to get back on track at Talladega. I don’t have a tremendous amount of experience at superspeedways, but I learned a lot at Daytona so hopefully it will carry over to this Saturday. The ML Motorsports team has been working hard at the shop to prepare fast cars and its showing. We are continuously improving each week, and that’s exactly what we intend to do at Talladega.”

The No. 70 Biomet/Foretravel Motorcoach Chevrolet - The No. 70 Biomet/Foretravel Motorcoach Chevrolet team will bring chassis ML-58 to Saturday’s event. Chassis ML-58 was last raced on February 25 at Daytona International Speedway where Long finished in the 21st position.

Last Race Recap – Long and the ML Motorsports team had a strong showing last Friday at Richmond International Raceway. The Rookie driver had no prior starts at Richmond and was able to quickly adapt to the track while wheeling the No. 70 Biomet/Foretravel Motorcoach Chevrolet to a solid top-20 finish.

Race Week Appearances – Long will be participating in several appearances at Talladega. She will be attending the NASAR Nationwide Series autograph session on Friday, May 4 from 1:30-2:30 pm behind the south grandstand. She will also be participating in a Q&A session with several Girl Scouts on Saturday, May 5 from 11:30-11:45 pm; location TBA.