Woody Howard wins at Iowa Speedway!

NEWTON, IA (September 17, 2006) - Woody Howard and the Dean Motorsports #55 team prevailed in the first of six Championship races for the USAR Hooters ProCup Series at the inaugural event held at Iowa Speedway this past Friday night.

On this night the northern division drivers faced off against their southern division counterparts in what would end up being a test of strategy, patience, and preservation. Preservation of what turned out to be a tire wear issue discovered during Friday afternoon practice.

Series officials, after conferring with teams, decided to adopt a 440-minimum gear rule in order to shave speeds and reduce heat stress on the tires and adopt an unlimited tire rule for the Iowa race.

"It's unfortunate they've got this tire controversy going on right now, but nothing's perfectly smooth on a grand-opening date," Iowa Speedway designer and co-owner Rusty Wallace said before the main event. "What happened is the day they tested (the tires) here, it was raining and the track cooled off. It didn't have the heat in it, so they got misled a little bit, but racers persevere."

And that's exactly what Woody did in Friday's Soy Biodiesel 250 which took place on the 7/8-mile asphalt oval in front of a crowd of more than 18,000 fans.

Although Woody placed as high as 4th in the previous practice sessions it became clear that speed was not going to win this race as much as tire strategy. Defying instincts and making a conscious effort to just drive was what would take Woody to the checkered flag on lap 259 of the event.

"The plan was to just ride for 200 laps and race the last 50," Howard said.

Howard was running fourth when a late-race caution set up a green-white-checkered finish. The #3 of Johnson nudged the #22 of Mardy Lindley out of the lead on Lap 258. The contact allowed Woody to get a run on the leader going into Turn 1 on the final lap. Howard and Johnson went side-by-side for the final lap, banging off each other several times. With the crowd on their feet, it was in a 3-wide checkered flag finish where Howard took the lead from Daniel Johnson on the last lap to capture the inaugural Soy Bio diesel 250!

"I can't thank my team mates, Billy Hess, and Jim Dean enough for getting me to the end." (Howard)

The next race schedules for the USAR Hooters ProCup Championship series is Saturday, Sept. 30, 2006 @ Jennerstown Speedway (PA) @ 8PM.