June 2, 2003

Bill Lester Coming Full Circle at Texas Motor Speedway

O'Reilly 400K
June 6, 2003
Texas Motor Speedway
TV: SPEED (Live) 9:00 PM-Eastern Time
Radio: MRN (Live) 9:00 PM-Eastern Time

2003 points standing after 6 of 25 races
Position Driver Points
1st Bobby Hamilton 996
2nd Rick Crawford 953
3rd Travis Kvapil 884
4th Ted Musgrave 876
5th Brendan Gaughan 873
10th Chad Chaffin 763
13th Bill Lester 714

Bill Lester Profile
Birthdate - February 6, 1961
Wife - Cheryl
Children - Alex
Residence - Atlanta, Georgia
Education - BS in E.E./C.S.
U.C. Berkeley

NASCAR Truck Series Career Statistics
Year-By-Year
Years Starts Wins Top 5's Top 10's Money
2000 1 0 0 0 $ 7,770
2001 5 0 0 0 35,700
2002 22 0 0 0 264,766
2003 6 0 0 0 67,775
Totals 34 0 0 0 $376,011

Career Best Start:
1st @ Lowes Motor Speedway 5-16-03
Best Finish: 11th twice @ Texas Motor Speedway 6-7-02 and
Dover Intl. Speedway 5-30-03
Biggest Purse: $ 15,165 @ Daytona Intl. Speedway 3-14-03

Career Highlights (1985-2003)
1. 1985 SCCA Northern California Region Rookie of the Year
2. 1986 SCCA GT-3 Regional Road Racing Champion
3. Entered three Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona between 1998 and 2000
4. One NASCAR Busch Series start at Watkins Glen Intl. Speedway in 1999

Topics of Interest

Performance Record: Dover International Speedway
Date Start Finish Laps Status Money Won
6-7-02 7 11 167 of 167 Running $ 13,350
9-13-02 6 28 49 of 146 Running 6,935
Totals 216 of 313(69.0%) $ 20,285

No. 8 Team History: Year Start Finish Driver
2002 6 28 Bill Lester
7 11 Bill Lester
2001 18 19 Willy T. Ribbs
20 25 Willy T. Ribbs

Full Circle: Everything came full circle last week at Dover International Speedway. Bill Lester finished in the 11th position, equaling his career-best Truck Series finish that occurred at Texas Motor Speedway in June of last year. So to say that he is poised to improve that career best mark in the O'Reilly 400K is an understatement.

"We're ready," said Lester. "What a tough race last week at Dover. We got out of that place with a pretty good finish, but this week we're ready to set up and get that top ten. I love racing here, and I'm confident that the guys on the team will have a great truck under me when we get there."

Lester's last outing at a D-shaped oval produced his first career pole position at Lowes Motor Speedway last month.

"I traditionally have run well on the mile and a half super speedways, so I'm coming in here feeling really good about what we have for this place," said Lester. "We had a good truck here last year and got a lap down under a green flag pit stop, so hopefully nothing like that will happen again this time around."

Lester and the No. 8 BHR Dodge Motorsports team enter this week's race in the 13th position in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series points standings, just 49 points out of 10th place.

"We're trying to keep the big picture in mind every time out," said Lester. "I learned last year that you have to finish these races to gain points, so that's what we are trying to do every week. I think we have completed right at 99% of the laps we've run, so we're doing everything right to finish these races."

Lester has completed 1081 laps of the 1094 laps possible, which is 98.7% of the laps run.

Earnings: Lester is a mere $ 23,989 away from surpassing the $ 400,000 mark in career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series earnings.


Lester's 2003 Craftsman Truck Series Event Results

Location Start Finish Laps Status Money
Daytona 8 18 97 of 106 Accident $ 15,165
Darlington 15 12 144 of 147 Running 9,465
Bakersfield 23 13 255 of 255 Running 8,190
Martinsville 17 19 250 of 250 Running 9,315
Charlotte 1 15 135 of 136 Running 11,890
Dover 15 11 198 of 200 Running 13,750
Texas (Next Event)

2003 Totals
Starts - 6
Poles - 1
Wins - 0
Top fives - 0
Top tens - 0
Earnings - $ 67,775
Laps Completed - 1081 of 1094 (98.7%)
Laps Led - 0 of 1094
Races Led - 0 of 6
DNF's - 1


This Week's Truck: Lester will be driving "Curley" this week at Texas Motor Speedway. It is the same truck that missed sitting on the pole last year at Phoenix International Raceway by one-one-thousandth of a second. The team had hoped to bring Trix, the same truck that set on the pole at Charlotte, to Texas this week, but it was destroyed at Dover last week in a practice crash.

Performance Chart: Curley
DATE RACE START/FINISH DRIVER
5-5-02 St. Louis 12 17 Bill Lester
5-19-02 Pikes Peak 9 15 Bill Lester
6-29-02 Milwaukee 16 18 Bill Lester
9-21-02 South Boston 31 17 Bill Lester
11-8-02 Phoenix 2 14 Bill Lester
3-14-03 Darlington 14 12 Bill Lester
3-23-03 Bakersfield 23 13 Bill Lester
4-12-03 Martinsville 17 19 Bill Lester

Lester Quotes

"We don't have the same truck as we had in Charlotte here this week at Texas, but I think we'll be just fine. I crashed Trix at Dover in happy hour last week, and the boys just did not have time to get it fixed. Not to worry though, Curley is one of our best trucks, so there's very little to worry about. I feel like we can go there and have a good shot, just like Charlotte."

"I have to give to my guys credit for last week's hard work. It's easy sometimes to be the driver. Last week when I crashed on race morning, I had to go out and entertain at hospitality which is not all that hard. While I was out there, my guys worked their butts off getting the backup truck ready to race. When I got back to the transporter and saw the looks of exhaustion on their faces, there's not much you can say other than "thanks," and hope they know that you're going to go give it your all on the track for them just like they do for you in the pits."

For More Information see www.bobbyhamiltonracing.com