Future Indy 500 Stars Racing At New Jersey Motorsports Park in June

Atlantic Championship History Suggests Current Drivers Set To Make Motorsports Splash

Millville, N.J. (May 26, 2009) - Throughout the years, graduates of the Cooper Tires Presents The Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda have gone on to spectacular motorsports careers. This year's crop of up and coming drivers will visit New Jersey Motorsports Park for two races (rounds 3 and 4 of the 12-race 2009 championship) during the Formula X presented by Cooper Tires weekend, June 12-14.

While John Edwards, Simona De Silvestro, and the rest of this year's Atlantic Championship class vying for the season-ending $1 million prize may not be household names (yet), history shows that many will be soon.

The series has developed some of racing's all-time greats, including American motorsports greats Bobby Rahal, Danny Sullivan and Jimmy Vasser and Formula 1 legends Gilles Villeneuve, Jacques Villeneuve, and Keke Rosburg among many others. More recently, motorsports fans saw a host of Atlantic Championship grads post stellar performances in Sunday's 93rd Indianapolis 500. Three series graduates finished inside the top 10, with another taking Rookie of the Year honors.

Dan Wheldon, Danica Patrick and Paul Tracy earned top-10 results, while Alex Tagliani took the $25,000 Rookie of the Year award, marking the third consecutive year that an Atlantic graduate has won the prestigious award. It was the fourth time in five years that a former Atlantic competitor was named Rookie of the Year at Indianapolis and the 11th time overall.

Wheldon, the 2005 Indianapolis 500 winner, charged from 18th on the grid to finish second in the No. 2 machine for Panther Racing. He finished one spot ahead of Patrick, who finished third in the No. 7 Andretti Green Racing entry and made a bit more history on Sunday as the first woman to finish third in the Indianapolis 500. Patrick earned "500" Rookie of the Year honors in 2005 with a fourth-place performance.

Tracy made it three Atlantic grads inside the top 10 with a ninth-place run aboard the No. 15 KV Racing Technology machine. It was Tracy's fifth Indianapolis 500 start and his first since 2002. At least two former Atlantic drivers were inside the top 10 positions throughout the 500-mile race and at least three ran inside the top 10 for all but 16 laps (Laps 164-179). As many as four Atlantic graduates were within the top 10 on several different occasions throughout the 200 laps.

After starting 33rd in the No. 36 Conquest Racing machine, which was qualified by Bruno Junqueira, Tagliani methodically worked his way forward for an 11th-place result in his first "500." He was the highest-finishing rookie in the race and became the third straight former Atlantic competitor to win Rookie of the Year honors, following Ryan Hunter-Reay last year and Phil Giebler in 2007.

Atlantic graduates Raphael Matos and Graham Rahal spent significant amounts of time inside the top five and both appeared to be contenders for the victory before accidents ended their race. Matos, the 2007 Atlantic champion, wound up 22nd in the final race standings. Rahal - the runner-up in the 2006 Atlantic Championship to Simon Pagenaud - crashed in Turn 4 on Lap 56 and was credited with 31st place in the No. 02 Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing entry. Hunter-Reay's race also ended with a crash in Turn 4 on Lap 20. He wound up 32nd in the No. 21 Vision Racing machine.

The Formula X weekend presented by Cooper Tires, June 12-14, also features the Star Mazda and Skip Barber Championships, SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup, and IMSA Lites competition on the South Jersey facility's 2.25-mile Thunderbolt Raceway. On Lightning Raceway, All Revved Up from Team Pro-Motion features a motorcycle track day, demo rides, dyno runs and a custom bike show, offering two events to motorsports fans for the price of one.

Tickets for all events at New Jersey Motorsports Park, including Formula X presented by Cooper Tires and All Revved Up are available at www.njmp.com. Children 12 and under are admitted free to all events at New Jersey Motorsports Park.

Sitting on over 500 acres in Millville, N.J., New Jersey Motorsports Park is conveniently located to Philadelphia, the Jersey Shore, New York and Baltimore, and offers diverse and dynamic motorsports attractions. The facility includes two world-class road courses (Thunderbolt and Lightning), an exclusive motorsports country club known as the Drivers Club, the Breighton Room Restaurant open to the general public, and F1 New Jersey, one of the top karting facilities in America. Opened in July 2008, New Jersey Motorsports Park hosts eight major motorsports events in 2009. The 2009 spectator schedule opened with the Verizon Wireless 250 presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 in May, and also includes the Formula X weekend featuring the Atlantic Championship powered by Mazda and a host of Mazda-powered race series, as well as All Revved Up; the debut of the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) Pro Road Race Series, including the American Superbike class and the new Daytona Sportbike program; the return of the ARCA/ReMax Series as the only road course visit on the series schedule; a Ferrari Challenge event and the excitement of two separate Vintage race weekends.