Mosport: Leighton Reese qualifying notes

Mosport qualifying short and sweet Leighton Reese and his Banner Engineering Corvette C-6 as he wins the pole

Ontario, Canada: (September 3, 2005) Leighton Reese, of Minnetonka Minnesota, shocked the SPEED World Challenge GT field as he blasted away the existing track record and qualified his Banner Engineering Chevy Corvette C6 on the pole position for today's Round 10 of the SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge GT Series here at Mosport Park in Ontario Canada.

"I knew it was going to be a decent lap because I was hitting the rev limiter where I wasn't hitting it in practice and when my crew chief told me 22 and change I was shocked because I was hoping to get a mid 23," smiled Reese during the post qualifying press conference.

"In the middle of my second lap it started to rain so I knew that the deal was sealed if someone didn't knock me off right then," Leighton said with a smile. "It was just a perfect lap and I am very excited about it."

After only a few laps a brief rain shower began ending the qualifying session, that had been scheduled for 20 minutes, early and a smiling Leighton Reese climbed out of his black and yellow Corvette a happy man.

"I don't know if they were going to wait until the traffic died down or this or that to crank one of their fast ones but if they did their strategy failed miserably, Reese said with a smile."

"We practiced on used tires we actually ran out of used tires so we were practicing on junk tires yesterday and I know we were doing mid 24's with cord hanging out the fronts so I knew that we would be better if I didn't make any mistakes," Reese continued.

"I'm really happy for my guys they worked really hard for this," Leighton proudly said of his small but talented Banner Racing team. "I only have a crew chief and two mechanics so we are traveling on a light crew."

"I got to give my crew chief Joe Kantarik credit he just sets that car up meticulously, to the point of obsession," winked Leighton.

The GT race for the SPEED World Challenge Series is scheduled to begin at 4:00 PM Eastern Time. The race will be shown on the SPEED TV network on Saturday September 10th at 1 PM Eastern Time.

-br-