3-23-07 -- For Immediate Release

Patrick Long Qualifies The Ruby Tuesday Championship Racing Team In Third Spot for Grand Prix of Miami

Patrick Long and the No. 23 Ruby Tuesday Championship Racing Team Porsche Crawford Daytona Prototype will take the green flag from the inside of row two following qualifying for the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Special Reserve Linder Industrial Komatsu Grand Prix of Miami tomorrow afternoon.

With consistent improvement every time the Alex Job Racing-prepared Porsche Crawford took to the track, Long hit his stride on lap four of his seven-circuit qualifying stint to post a time of 1:14:449 (111.053 mph) and secure third-place among the 20-car Daytona Prototype field.  This result greatly improves upon the team’s previous-best eighth place qualifying position at both Daytona and Mexico City earlier this season.

“I’m very happy with third-place,” Long said of his qualifying run. “The team did an awesome job of staying persistent and improving the car every time we’ve gone onto the track. We actually focused on race set-up during practice, so to be this far forward in qualifying is a nice surprise - but hopefully we can make it last throughout the race and lock in a podium finish.”

“Patrick did a great job,” teammate Jörg Bergmeister said. “P3 (third place) is the best qualifying result for us so far, so we’re very happy.  We knew by the end of the second practice session that we had our quickest car to that point, so now we expect to have a really good car for the race.”

Team owner Alex Job is happy with the qualifying results as well, but thinks winning the pole position was definitely within grasp of the Ruby Tuesday Championship Racing Team.

“We’re happy to have qualified third, but I believe we had a real chance at the pole (position),” Job stated.  “Our data from practice showed we had a 1:14:3 car and that’s exactly what the pole speed turned out to be.

“Our guys did a great job and we were prepared for qualifying well ahead of schedule. We got in line to roll out to pit row and that apparently created some confusion with the process for lining the cars up to start qualifying. The result was that we were held until all the other cars had begun the qualifying session and we were the last ones to exit the pits. Unfortunately, the confusion threw off our qualifying strategy and somewhat interfered with our effort to execute that plan, so as happy as we are with qualifying third, we think we may have been able to do even better."

“Fortunately though, I’ve already met with (Grand-Am) series officials and I’m lead to believe that a specific procedure will be in place by our next event which will prevent this situation from occurring in the future. So hopefully this is an isolated situation.”

Grand-Am fans can catch all of the exciting race action from Homestead-Miami Speedway on SPEED Channel beginning at 2 p.m. (EDT) Saturday, March 24, with the green flag dropping at 2:15 p.m. (EDT).

The Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series is offering satellite race highlights feeds from all 2007 races, including this Saturday’s Linder Industrial Komatsu Grand Prix of Miami from Homestead-Miami Speedway.  The feed will be up Saturday, March 25: 5:45 – 6:00 p.m. ET; Satellite Space: SBS6/02K;  Uplink Freq: 14049.5 H;  Downlink Freq: 11749.5 V;  Bandwidth: 43 MHz;  Data Rate: 41.25;  SR Rate: 30;  FEC: 3 / 4;  Signal Standard: Standard Def;  Audio: Ch 1 – Stereo Left, Ch 2 – Stereo Right, Ch 3 – Nats Only;  Ch 4 Nats Only.  Highlights and interview package will run repeatedly in the 15-minute window. 

Ruby Tuesday is one of the nation’s leading casual-dining restaurant companies, with more than 900 restaurants worldwide. It was founded in 1972 by Sandy Beall, who serves as Chairman and CEO today.  The company is committed to having uncompromising freshness and quality with passionate employees who take pride in delighting guests with an excellent dining experience. The burger-centric menu features an assortment of handcrafted burgers, its fresh garden bar, premium baby back ribs and a variety of other signature entrées. Ruby Tuesday, Inc. is traded on the NY Stock Exchange (symbol: RI). To find out more about Ruby Tuesday, visit www.rubytuesday.com.  

For more information regarding the Ruby Tuesday Championship Racing Team, visit www.alexjobracing.com or contact Adam Horn at ahorn@iland.net or (660) 864-8927.