Bell Will Try to Duplicate Brown’s Results In This Weekend’s Pirelli World Challenge Doubleheader

LEXINGTON, Ohio, Aug. 2 — Paul Brown/Tiger Racing heads to the SCCA Pirelli World Challenge doubleheader at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course this weekend with one thought in mind: duplicating last year’s results here.

It’s a tall order, because team owner Paul Brown of Covina, Calif. won both halves of last year’s doubleheader at Mid-Ohio in the GTS class enroute to the series championship.

This time Justin Bell of Los Angeles will carry the team’s colors, as well as those of eBay Motors and Kenny Brown Performance, when he competes in the team’s No. 50 Ford Mustang Boss 302S.

He has stiff competition. It’s a popular venue, and the Cadillac Mid-Ohio Grand Prix Presented by StopTech is being held on the same weekend that the track hosts the IZOD IndyCar Series and the American Le Mans Series for added value to the fans. The result is a field of 56 World Challenge entries. The GTS class features the most cars with 26.

Bell got the year off to a great start by winning both halves of the season-opening doubleheader at the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in Florida in March. He has four top-five results in his seven starts this season. He missed the most recent doubleheader at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park due to a previous commitment, however, and he’s now fifth in the class’s overall driver point standings.

Brown competed in the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park races in June despite health issues and a long layoff, but he finished an amazing third in the first half of that doubleheader. He finished ninth in the nightcap even after his car’s header broke.

“I’m really looking forward to this weekend, since it seems like months since I’ve raced,” said Bell. “Having to miss Mosport provided mixed emotions, the most dominant of which was how proud I was of Paul to have such a strong outing in the car despite feeling awful. I was sorry to miss the races, but it was great to be part of SPEED’s coverage of the Barrett Jackson Auto Auctions.

“But now I’m back to World Challenge. I’m out of the championship hunt and carrying no reward weight, so it’s time for me to get a win this weekend!”

Both of this weekend's races will be broadcast live on world-challengetv.com. Live timing and scoring will be carried on the series’ Web site at world-challenge.com. Additionally, NBC Sports will air the races on Saturday, Aug. 25 at 1:30 p.m. (EDT).

Fans can follow Bell even more closely, however, through Twitter.

“As part of my developing relationship with eBay Motors, I’ll be uploading special content to my Twitter account all weekend,”  Bell said. Fans can follow him @JustinBellTV. The series also tweets updates @WCRacing.

Bell will also be part of the ABC crew covering the Mid-Ohio ALMS race Saturday at 2 p.m. Eastern.

Tiger Racing has a Facebook page. Additional team information will be posted there, on Kenny Brown Performance’s Facebook page, and in the blog on KennyBrown.com.

Kenny Brown will be on hand at Mid-Ohio to assist with team management. He’ll also have his new GT-4RS Mustang on display in the paddock as part of the new Kenny Brown Performance Mustang vehicle launch.  This exotic prototype features a completely new line of specialty products for the Mustang, and is Kenny Brown’s flagship for his new range of GT-4 Mustangs.

The GT-4RS Mustang that will be on display represents the depth of Kenny Brown Performance’s technology transfer program with Paul Brown/Tiger Racing and the team’s #50 GTS Mustang.

The World Challenge schedule during the Mid-Ohio weekend shows practice at 10 a.m. and qualifying at 4:30 p.m. Friday. The first race is at 5:10 p.m. Saturday and the second race is at 9:55 a.m. Sunday.

From: Linda Mansfield