Press Release 6/5/2004

Wampun, Pa. (June 5th.) The Guident Technolgies/HRPWorld.com/Flatoutracing.net team secured an important and hard fought 2nd place this past Saturday at Round 3 of the East Coast Honda Challenge at Beaverun Motorsports Park.

The team endured both the highs and lows of racing this past weekend. Arriving very late Friday night and missing free practice on Friday, Flatoutracing's Jon Kofod had no time for setup work. Making things even more difficult was the weather, which switched back and forth between periods of light rain and medium rain.

The team set the car up for a partially damp track but the strategy failed when the rain started to intensify after a few laps in qualifying and the setup chosen hampered lap times. Kofod qualified 7th in class nearly 3 seconds off the pace of Jon Marhefka and Colin Botha.

During the race Kofod got a very good start on the first lap and was able to pick up two spots to move into 5th spot. After some battling with slower H1 cars, Kofod passed another H4 competitor on the back straight and gained 4th place. Then an ensuing battle with Team Hancook's Ian Carpenter saw Kofod make a pass on the front straight after the two battled for 4 laps. Carpenter made several attempts at re-passing Kofod but eventually became a victim of slower traffic.

Kofod finally was able to secure 2nd place when Botha spun in turn 2 and Kofod was able to get by him, narrowly avoiding a collision as Botha sat turned around in the middle of turn two.

Marehefka, was nowhere in sight and set some stunning lap times, bettering his own track record by three tenths of a second (1:08.447) and finishing first in class and a stunning 6th overall among the much faster H1 cars.

"We are happy to finish where we did given the circumstances. We have never raced here, had no practice or setup time, and had to learn the track and the car in wet and rainy conditions. Our goal in the first race was a 3rd place podium finish" said Kofod.

"Being stuck on the starting grid between several slower H1 and H2 cars and 6 other H4 cars we knew it would be hard to catch Botha and Marhefka. I was only about 6-7 car lengths off Botha when he spun but we couldn't match his speed at all. Marhefka was on a different planet today (over a full second faster than anyone in H4). Second place was a very good result" stated Flatoutracing's Kofod.

On Sunday a cracked windshield prevented the Guident Technoligies/HRPWorld.com team from starting the Round 4 race.

The team will resume their championship battle in two weeks at Road Atlanta still atop the Championship points lead in H4 class.