FINLAY MOTORSPORTS DRIVER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM DANE CAMERON: ANATOMY OF A FIRST STEP EXAMINING DANE CAMERON'S DEBUT IN THE ATLANTIC CHAMPIONSHIP AT THE LONG BEACH GRAND PRIX by Peter Frey

LONG BEACH, CA (May 5, 2008) - Rising open-wheel racing star Dane Cameron climbed up to the next step on the Motorsports ladder with his debut as a driver in the season-opening 2008 Cooper Tires Presents the Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda event at the Long Beach Grand Prix two weeks ago He qualified, and finished, 11th in the #19 Genoa Racing / MAZDASPEED / Finlay Motorsports Swift 016.a -- a respectable performance for a young driver making his first start in a highly-professional, highly-competitive racing series, but hardly the whole story, nor any reliable indicator of future performance. Examined more closely with the benefit of hindsight, it was an altogether remarkable performance with the outcome determined by circumstance rather than speed or talent. "I'm a very competitive guy, so naturally I was hoping for a better result, both for myself and for all the people who've helped me along the way," says the 19 year-old native of Somona, California. "But the team and I learned a lot, including how important qualifying is. The Atlantic cars are all very equal, even more so than the Star Mazda Championship where I raced last year and there are a lot of good, experienced drivers who don't make many mistakes. When you've got 15 guys running within a second of each other, that's a really high level of competition, but I'm confident the Genoa Racing team and I have what it takes to run up front." "I'm a very competitive guy, so naturally I was hoping for a better result, both for myself and for all the people who've helped me along the way." Cameron, the 2007 Star Mazda champion who won sponsorship for his move up to Atlantic courtesy of the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Driver Development Ladder, came into Long Beach with his pre-season plans thoroughly scrambled by the last-instant ‘unification' of Champ Car and the Indy Racing League. The team he signed to drive for, SierraSierra, winner of the 2007 Atlantic championship, decided in the turbulent wake of the merger to suspend operations for 2008, leaving Cameron and his supporters scrambling to find a new team capable of fielding a top-flight effort. He struck a deal to test with Genoa Racing, a team with a rich heritage in many forms of motorsports. Founded by successful San Francisco-based businessman Angelo Ferro in the early 1980s, the team began competing in the famed CanAm Championship, moved to the Atlantic series in 1990 and graduated to Indy Racing League competition in 1997-98 as Thomas Knapp Motorsports/Genoa Racing with driver Greg Ray, a period highlighted by Ray's front-row qualifying run for the 1998 Indianapolis 500. So, with a professional, experienced team providing equipment and personnel, Cameron responded with a performance that left knowledgeable observers stunned; at the Atlantic series' pre-season test at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, against all the top teams and a number of drivers with multiple years of Atlantic experience, Cameron dominated both days of testing. As a result , he and Genoa struck a deal to run the full 2008 season together. When the Dane and the Genoa team rolled out onto the Long beach street circuit for the first time, it was against a backdrop of substantial expectations and Cameron and the Genoa team again responded with a top-6 performance in both practice sessions – on a technically difficult track where Cameron had never driven before. But it was the qualifying session that told the tale for the race. With both air and track temperatures significantly higher than during practice, and with a car suffering from several small but telling mechanical problems that were not immediately apparent to the team engineers and mechanics, Cameron qualified 11th in a 23-car field matched so closely that the first 14 cars all qualified within one second of each other. Dane Cameron A post-qualifying teardown of Cameron's #14 by the crack Genoa Racing crew revealed several areas where adjustments and replacement parts would result in a faster, more consistent race car. With the car re-assembled and re-tuned, Cameron was much happier with its balance and was very quick in the morning warm-up session prior to the race. "The main mechanical lesson of all this is that we have to do some more work on our hot weather setups, but Genoa Racing team gave me a really good car for the race and I was looking forward to the green flag," says Cameron, who has won three open-wheel championships and three Rookie of the Year awards in the last three years. "Starting from 11th on a track where its as hard to pass as it is at Long Beach, our only hope was for a couple of full-course yellow flags to bunch up the field and give me the opportunity to pass some cars on the re-start. Unfortunately there was only one brief full-course yellow for debris on the track and the race turned out to be pretty much of a parade. But we were able to run the same pace as the leaders, didn't make any mistakes and brought the car home in one piece. Under the circumstances, Long Beach was a successful first step." Cameron's next step up the open-wheel ladder comes at a track he knows well and where he has tested with great success, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Round Two of the 2008 Cooper Tires Presents the Atlantic Championship Series Powered by Mazda takes place at the historic Northern California track May 16 – 18 during Grand-Am's Rolex Series RumBum.com 250 weekend. "Everything I didn't have at Long Beach, I'll have at Laguna; confidence in my knowledge of the track, a setup that should be good right out of the box, trackside reference points for braking and turn-in, passing zones, all those little things that make a big difference." "Everything I didn't have at Long Beach, I'll have at Laguna; confidence in my knowledge of the track, a setup that should be good right out of the box, trackside reference points for braking and turn-in, passing zones, all those little things that make a big difference," says Cameron. "I started from the pole and finished second there last year in the Star Mazda Championship season finale, so that should help overcome whatever advantage the more experienced Atlantic drivers have. And the relationship between the Genoa Racing team and I continues to evolve and improve every day, so I'm looking forward to a competitive race with a strong result." Atlantic on-track action at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca begins with a 9:00 am practice session on Friday, May 16. The first qualifying session is set for 2:00 - 2:45 pm that afternoon, with the results determining one of the two cars to start on the front row. There is a second practice session 8:30 - 9:15 am Saturday, May 17, with final qualifying to set the other front-row starter and the remainder of the starting grid scheduled for 12:40 - 1:15 pm that afternoon. The 1-hour Atlantic race is scheduled to take the green flag at 1:00 pm Sunday, May 18. Dates and times for the television broadcast of the event have yet to be determined; check www.champcaratlantic.com <http://www.champcaratlantic.com/> for further information. Cameron's participation in the 2008 Atlantic Championship Series is made possible by the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Driver Development Ladder, as well as a variety of long-time personal sponsors; including the Finlay Motorsports Driver Development Program, Lynx Racing, Mockett.com, Rett.org, Nearburg Exploration, Red Line Oil and Sparco USA. DANE CAMERON: THE GRADUATE GOES TO LONG BEACH MAZDA'S NEWEST ‘LADDER' CHAMPION MAKES HIS ATLANTIC DEBUT AMID HIGH EXPECTATIONS LONG BEACH, CA (April 12, 2008) - There's not a driver racing at the Long Beach Grand Prix this weekend who has more going for him, or more expected of him, than rising open-wheel star Dane Cameron. Cameron, winner 2007 Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear – and the full-season MAZDASPEED Motorsports Driver Development Ladder Atlantic sponsorship that goes with it – will be making his competition debut in the #19 Genoa Racing/MAZDASPEED Swift 016.a in Round One of the 2008 Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda… a race that was won last year by Raphael Matos, the 2005 Star Mazda champion. Add to that a stellar family racing pedigree and the three championships and three ‘Rookie of the Year' awards he's won during his climb up the motorsports ladder, along with the fact that he was fastest in both days of Atlantic series pre-season testing at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Pile on the widely-held view among motorsports insiders that he's the next hot young American racer and the full weight of the expectations resting on the shoulders of this 19 year-old native of Sonoma, California becomes clear. "Pressure is a part of racing and if I hadn't learned along the way how to convert it into increased motivation, I wouldn't be where I am today." "Pressure is a part of racing and if I hadn't learned along the way how to convert it into increased motivation, I wouldn't be where I am today," observes Cameron. "I've worked hard, with the help of a lot of long-time supporters, to get here, so a lot of expectations means I've had a lot of success and have a good career ahead of me as long as I can keep delivering. Genoa Racing is an extremely successful team made up of top professionals and based on how well we've jelled and the results we've had in testing, I think we can compete for victory here and the Atlantic championship in 2008." And Cameron has had a close-up view of just exactly what it takes to win at Long Beach over the years. In 1998, 2001 and 2002, he watched from the pits as his father, Rick Cameron, and uncle, Steve Cameron - the race engineer and team manager of the legendary Lynx Racing Atlantic team owned by Peggy Haas and Jackie Doty -- orchestrated Atlantic victories for Memo Gidley, David Rutledge and Michael Valiante. Cameron will race with Lynx Racing's traditional #19 on his car during the 2008 season. Bringing it all full-circle, Cameron and Valiante co-drove a Chip Ganassi Racing/Finlay Motorsports 500-horsepower Daytona Prototype in the season-ending Rolex Series event at Miller Motorsports Park last year. And the lead mechanic on his Genoa Racing Atlantic car, Mike West, was also the lead mechanic for Lynx Racing during several of those Long Beach victories. Another element in the mix is Genoa team principal, technical director and Cameron's race engineer, Thomas Knapp, himself a former top open-wheel racer. Cameron arrives at this major step in his career via an accomplished climb up the open-wheel ladder. In addition to the 2007 Star Mazda Championship, where he was both series champion and Rookie of the Year (only the second driver in the series' 17-year history to become champion in his first season), Cameron was the 2006 F2000 Rookie of the Year and finished second in the championship. As a Team USA Scholarship driver, he won the 2006 Palmer Audi Winter Championship in Europe. In 2005 Cameron was the SCCA Formula Jim Russell Series champion and Rookie of the Year. His karting career, beginning in 2000, was similarly successful, including the 2003 Jim Russell Karting 80cc Junior Shifter Championship and a 2004 finalist in the Red Bull Driver Search. Dane Cameron Cameron's participation in the 2008 Atlantic Championship Series powered by Mazda is made possible by the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Driver Development Ladder, as well as a variety of long-time personal sponsors; including the Finlay Motorsports Driver Development Program, Lynx Racing, Mockett.com, Rett.org, Nearburg Exploration, Red Line Oil and Sparco USA. Genoa Racing is a team with a rich heritage in many forms of motorsports. Founded by successful San Francisco-based businessman Angelo Ferro in the early 1980s, the team began competing in the famed CanAm Championship, began competing in the Atlantic series in 1990 and in 1991 signed Jimmy Vasser, now a veteran Champ Car driver/team owner making a one-off return to the cockpit at Long Beach. Genoa moved into Indy Racing League competition in 1997-98 as Thomas Knapp Motorsports/Genoa Racing with driver Greg Ray, a period highlighted by Ray's front-row qualifying run for the 1998 Indianapolis 500. Genoa, in addition to Dane Cameron, will also field a car for Atlantic series veteran Alan Scutio. "We know that Dane will be a force from his showing in the first two tests of the pre season and were super impressed with young Alan Sciuto's commitment, focus and speed in the car," says Knapp. "We feel that these two champions will raise each other's game, as well as the team's championship focus. Both Angelo and I are extremely pleased with the team's depth of talent and can't wait to hit the streets of Long Beach with these two quick, young racers." Team owner Angelo Ferro mirrored Knapp's enthusiasm by adding, "Thomas and the guys have put together a great team and with these two, incredibly talented young drivers, the level of excitement is beyond belief. I can't wait for Genoa to roll out at Long Beach, a place where so many great racing memories have been forged." On-track activities for Round One of the 2008 Atlantic Championship Series Powered by Mazda begin with an 8:00 am practice session on Friday morning, followed by a one-hour qualifying session beginning at 3:00 pm that afternoon. While the first qualifying session determines which driver will start on the pole for the race, the second session, just 35 minutes long and scheduled to begin at 12:50 pm on Saturday, will determine the other front-row starter and the starting order for the remainder of the field. The race itself, scheduled for one hour, will take the green flag at 10:35 am Sunday morning. The date and time of the television broadcast of the race will be posted on the Atlantic series web site, www.atlanticchamionship.com, as soon as the information becomes available. Round Two of the 2008 Atlantic Championship Series Powered by Mazda takes place at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on May 18, during the Monterey Festival of Speed weekend featuring the Grand-Am Rolex Series.