For immediate release.
Montreal, Canada March 08, 2006.

Clearing out the cobwebs !

Marc launched his 2006 season this past weekend at the last round of the Winter Tour in Ocala, Florida in the elite professional “Pro-Shifter” category in anticipation to his full participation in all rounds of the Indy Racing League’s supported “Stars of Karting” pro championship kicking off in Norman, Oklahoma on March 17-19.

Due to his work commitments he was unable to participate in first four races of the season of the Winter Tour or in the open practice day on Thursday. It meant that on Friday he was thrown in at the “deep end” with zero running time all year compared to his fellow competitors. It was a very stiff challenge to say the least. Given that the grids are often covered by time differences of less than a second, Marc had his work cut out for him. On Friday and Saturday the telemetric data clearly showed that some “rust” had settled in and that he was over driving the machine. Translated, this means too much entry speed into the corners, fighting the machine through the corners and delayed acceleration and exit speed for the straights. Feels fast but is not the quickest way around the track. The good news is that by Sunday, after hours of computer read out evaluations, it was obvious that Marc was getting a handle on things such that in the “final” he drove though the pack to finish in a very satisfactory 10th place (and catching the 9th place finisher) in a highly competitive star studded field. His times were only a couple of 10th of a second off some of the “star” lead drivers. The other very positive discovery of the weekend is that Marc is probably fitter than he has ever been. His current high altitude activities (alpine skiing) in Lake Louise have dramatically improved his stamina and ability to withstand the extremely high physical demands of racing these machines that accelerate and decelerate with body wrenching speed.

Although the Norman, Oklahoma race track is new venue for Marc and an extremely “physical” one at that, he will have a full day of testing on the Friday before the event. This should be of great help. Team PSL will also have a new 2006 CRG chassis at his disposal which is reputed to be yet another step up on the 2005 version. Being realistic though, given the lack of overall prior track time and where the fields typically exceed 50 competitors, we anticipate that it will be a “victory” to finish somewhere in the top 20. You never know though!

HSBC Bank, Link International, Les Disques RSB, OPSIA Information Technologies, Cordeau/Clément & Associates (Attorneys), “California Pizza” Restaurants, LeMaitreD.com (Purveyors of fine gourmet foods) and KBHNS (Chartered Accountants), are all proud sponsors of Marc Flood.

Contacts:
Miles Flood: (514) 591 0032