Newly crowned AMA Supersport and Superstock Champion Jamie Hacking will be a special guest on XM Radio’s PowerShift with Joe Castello tonight at 6:45 EST. Power Shift covers the world of motor sports from IRL, NHRA, F1, ALMS, AMA, ARCA and NASCAR. Castello is known for his “No holds barred” opinions while maintaining a sense of humor about his favorite motorsports. Power Shift airs Mon- Fri, 6:00 – 7:00 PM (EST) on XM143 – XMSN (Sports)

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. A world class field of endurance racers is set to take to the track later today for the first time in preparation for this weekend’s inaugural 8 Hours At Daytona. The event is the debut event for the SunTrust MOTO-ST Series. A two-hour practice session on the 3.56-mile 14-turn Daytona International Speedway road course starts at 5:00 p.m. ET today. The session will give the riders their first experience of the track in nighttime conditions as they prepare for Saturday’s eight-hour race, which begins at 1:00 p.m. ET. This will be the first motorcycle night race at Daytona since 1985. The entry of over 100 riders includes former World Endurance champion riders Stephane Mertens of Belgium and Australian Warwick Nowland, and legendary U.S. endurance squad Team M4 EMGO Suzuki. Mertens has enjoyed a long and varied motorcycle road racing career. He finished second in the World Superbike Championship in 1989 and placed third in 1990. He was World Endurance Champion in 1995. Mertens is part of the San Jose BMW team this weekend riding a BMW R1200 with Brian Parriott of Calistoga, Calif. And Nate Kern of Cherry Hill, N.J. Nowland is a two-time World Endurance Champion and will be riding a BMW Motorcycles of Daytona-backed BMW R1200, teamed with Mike Ciccoto of Sebastien, Fla. and John Haner of Austin, Texas. Team M4 EMGO Suzuki has 13 WERA National Endurance Championships to its credit and 128 endurance race wins. The team’s riders include Michael Barnes of Boca Raton, Fla., Gainesville, Ga.’s Geoff May and Chris Ulrich from Lake Elsinore, Calif. The 39 teams entered will be competing in three classes. The Buell Motorcycle Company SuperSport class (SST) includes motorcycles producing between 90-118 horsepower, the BMW Grand Sport Twins class (GST) covers motorcycles producing 75-90 horsepower, and machines under 75 horsepower will battle in the Sport Twins category (ST). Starting positions for the race will be by order of entry in each class, with motorcycles in the SST class placed first, followed by GST and then ST. Pirelli has been named as the sole supplier of SunTrust MOTO-ST tires for the inaugural 8 Hours At Daytona as well as the first full season of competition in 2007. All competitors will use Sunoco GT unleaded fuel and horsepower limits will be enforced by a Dynojet chassis dynamometer, and the starting grid will be determined by the order in which race entries were received. Saturday’s schedule calls for brief warm-up sessions for all classes beginning at 8:00 a.m. ET, followed by an autograph session at 10:00 a.m. The 8 Hours At Daytona is scheduled to take the green flag at 1:00 p.m. ET. Live Timing and Scoring data for all sessions will be available via the official web site of the SunTrust MOTO-ST Series, www.moto-st.com, and a one-hour highlight package from the race will air on SPEED at some point in the fourth quarter of 2006. Tickets to the 8 Hours At Daytona may be purchased online at www.daytonainternationalspeedway.com or www.racetickets.com or by calling 1-800-PIT-SHOP. MOTO-ST is organized by Professional Motorsports Productions of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and is sanctioned by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) of Pickerington, Ohio. The Grand American Road Racing Association, based in Daytona Beach, Fla., provides the series with administrative and commercial support. The MOTO-ST advisory board features some of the most respected individuals in the world of motorsports, including AMA Hall of Fame members, respected motorcycle racing journalists and renowned officials from various forms of road racing. Learn more about MOTO-ST at www.moto-st.com.

The Ducati Marlboro Team goes into the 2006 season finale aiming to end MotoGP’s 990cc era on a high by adding to its haul of race wins and podium finishes. Loris Capirossi will race at Valencia alongside former team-mate Troy Bayliss because Sete Gibernau is unfit to ride following further treatment to the collarbone he broke at June’s Catalan GP and damaged again at the recent Portuguese GP. Bayliss contested the 2003 and 2004 MotoGP championships with the Ducati Marlboro Team and won his second World Superbike title with Ducati earlier this month. The 2006 season has been the Ducati Marlboro Team’s most successful since it first entered the MotoGP World Championship in 2003. Capirossi has doubled his previous number of victories for the team by taking three wins (at Jerez, Brno and Motegi) plus four further podiums, two pole positions (at Jerez and Motegi) and four fastest laps. In contesting the final 990cc MotoGP event Bayliss will ‘bookend’ the public life of Ducati’s 990cc Desmosedici because he also gave the V4 its first public outing at the 2002 Valencia GP, riding a few demo laps alongside Ducati test rider Vittoriano Guareschi. Both Bayliss and Capirossi have scored podium finishes on the Desmosedici at Valencia, Capirossi taking third in 2003, Bayliss third the following year. LORIS CAPIROSSI, Ducati Marlboro Team rider, 4th overall, 209 points “Estoril was a bad weekend for us but the prevoious four races were amazing, the bike and the tyres working really well, so we hope that we will be in similar shape at Valencia so we can once again fight for the podium. Valencia is such a strange racetrack, like a go-kart track which makes it very tough on a MotoGP bike. The Valencia weekend is never easy because the circuit is very unusual, with many slow-speed corners that lead into each other and very few right-handers. It’s maybe not the ideal racetrack for MotoGP bikes, though it seems a lot of fun on a 125 or a 250. Looking at the year overall, we’ve had some great moments and some bad moments. I think the big first-turn crash at Barcelona lost us the chance of winning the title, but I don’t think about it any more, I think only of the present and of the future. I understand that this is the correct attitude because I have been racing in GPs for 17 years and during those years I have made many mistakes, but you must always move on, don’t dwell on the past”. TROY BAYLISS, Ducati Marlboro Team rider “The only way I can put it is that I appreciate the opportunity that has been given to me to race at Valencia with the Ducati Marlboro Team. I feel sorry of course for Sete, who won’t be able to race in his home GP, but it sort of makes sense that I have been called to replace him. I was there at the start of the whole Ducati MotoGP project four years ago, the decision just fell into place and I am sure there are lots of people in the Company and lots of fans who want to see me at Valencia. My season has finished and I have this great opportunity now so it’s nice for all concerned and it’ll also be great to join up again with some of my old team and mechanics. I feel really good it’s Valencia, because it’s a track I know like the back of my hand and I’ve always had good results there. I’ll be thrown in at the deep end and won’t have much time for practice but I know the bike pretty well. The only thing I won’t have tried are the Bridgestone, but we’ll take it step by step and see how it goes from there”. LIVIO SUPPO, Ducati MotoGP project manager “We are really sorry that once again Sete isn’t fit to race, it’s a real shame. For Loris, we hope he can finish the season by claiming third place overall, which will be our best result in the riders’ championship. We hope he can have another great race, like the races he has had this year at Jerez, Motegi, Brno, Mugello, Sepang and so on. We count on the team and on Bridgestone to give him all the support he needs to get the result he deserves. Finally, a big welcome back to Troy. He was the first guy to ride the Desmosedici in public here in Valencia in 2002 and now he will ride the bike in its last race. Once we realised that Sete wasn’t fit we invited Troy to race to celebrate his second Superbike title with us. We just want him to enjoy the weekend because although there will be a lot of expectation upon him, it won’t be easy. He is riding a bike and tyres that he’s not familiar with and he will be racing against guys who have been on their bikes all year.” THE TRACK Valencia is one of five anti-clockwise MotoGP circuits and the second-slowest GP circuit with a lap record of just 154.9kmh, a fraction slower than Laguna Seca and marginally faster than Estoril. Most of the track’s corners are slow, in-and-out turns, grouped closely together, this unusual layout affording spectators a mostly unobstructed view of the entire circuit – a real rarity in the world of motorsport. It’s an immensely physical circuit with riders afforded little rest between bouts of heavy acceleration, braking and cornering. This weekend Valencia hosts its eighth Grand Prix after featuring on the World Championship calendar for the first time in 1999. The venue is officially christened the Ricardo Tormo circuit, in honour of the late Spanish rider, a former 50cc World Champion. Lap record: Marco Melandri (Honda), 1m 33.043s, 154.961kp/h, 96.288mph, Pole position 2005: Sete Gibernau (Honda), 1m 31.874s DUCATI MARLBORO TEAM RIDER DATA LOGS LORIS CAPIROSSI Age: 33 (born April 4, 1973) Lives: Monaco Bike: Ducati Marlboro Team Desmosedici GP6 GP starts: 247 (77xMotoGP, 59×500, 84×250, 27×125) GP victories: 28 (6xMotoGP, 2×500, 12×250, 8×125) First GP victory: Britain, 1990 (125) First GP: Japan, 1990 (125) Pole positions: 41 (8xMotoGP, 5×500, 23×250, 5×125) First pole: Australia, 1991 (125) World Championships: 3 (125: 1990, 1991, 250: 1998) Valencia 2005 results: Grid: 7th. Race: 7th TROY BAYLISS Age: 37 (March 30, 1969) Lives: Monaco Bike: Ducati Marlboro Team Desmosedici GP4 First GP: Australia, 1997 (250) GP starts: 33 (32xMotoGP, 1×250) World Superbike victories: 34 World Championships: 2 (Superbike: 2001, 2006)

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. The debut race of the new SunTrust MOTO-ST Series will take place on the traditional 3.56-mile road course at Daytona International Speedway this weekend and race fans and competitors alike can follow all of the action of the inaugural 8 Hours At Daytona through Live Timing and Scoring available only at www.moto-st.com. The exclusive Live Timing and Scoring feature will provide up-to-the minute standings for Friday’s two-hour practice at 5p.m., Saturday morning’s warm-up sessions at 8 a.m. and for the entirety of the eight-hour race that begins Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. All times are Eastern. Designed to bring professional, team-based motorcycle endurance to major race markets throughout North America, MOTO-ST was formally announced at the “World Center of Racing” during famed “Bike Week” last March. SunTrust was announced as the series title sponsor earlier this month and the SunTrust MOTO-ST Series features three-classes of motorcycles competing on the track at the same time for overall and individual class honors. The Buell Super Sport Twins (SST) class includes bikes that produce at least 90 and no more than 118 horsepower, while the BMW Grand Sport Twins (GST) class will feature bikes with horsepower ranging from 75 to 90. The Sport Twins (ST) class includes bikes making less than 75 horsepower. Pirelli has been named as the sole supplier of SunTrust MOTO-ST tires for the inaugural 8 Hours At Daytona as well as the first full season of competition in 2007. All competitors will use Sunoco GT unleaded fuel and horsepower limits will be enforced by a Dynojet chassis dynamometer, and the starting grid will be determined by the order in which race entries were received. The inaugural event of the SunTrust MOTO-ST Series will take the Green Flag on Saturday, October 21 at 1:00 pm. (ET) with racers taking the Checkered Flag at 9:00 p.m. (ET). Tickets to the 8 Hours At Daytona may be purchased online at www.daytonainternationalspeedway.com or www.racetickets.com or by calling 1-800-PIT-SHOP. MOTO-ST is organized by Professional Motorsports Productions of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and is sanctioned by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) of Pickerington, Ohio. The Grand American Road Racing Association, based in Daytona Beach, Fla., provides the series with administrative and commercial support. The MOTO-ST advisory board features some of the most respected individuals in the world of motorsports, including AMA Hall of Fame members, respected motorcycle racing journalists and renowned officials from various forms of road racing. Learn more about MOTO-ST at www.moto-st.com.

The Spaniard Toni Elias will continue to ride for the Gresini Honda Team in MotoGP next season having signed a one -year deal with Fausto Gresini. After one season together, Fausto Gresini announced this morning the renewal of the contract with the 23 year-old Spanish rider who demonstrated, during the season, to be a determined rider. Last Sunday’s achievement of his first Motogp win at Estoril, was once again the confirmation of Toni Elias’ talent and strong potential. Toni Elias will be Marco Melandri’s team mate for the 2007 season, that sees MotoGP enters an exciting new era with the new 800cc rules coming into effect. FAUSTO GRESINI: “I’m very pleased to announce the renewal of the contract with Toni Elias for the 2007 season. We have always believed in his potential and we have supported him at the beginning of the year when he made his debut on the Honda RC211V and throughout the whole season. Last Sunday’s win at Estoril confirms that Tony is a talented rider with a great potential and enthusiasm. We are happy to continue the project that will see him next year on a Honda V4 800cc. We are motivated to grow and reach together important results. Toni Elias will continue working with the same team, an experienced and motivated staff. I’m happy to line up two young but strong riders for the 2007 season”. TONI ELIAS: “I’m very happy to have reached this agreement. The renewal of the contract gives me the opportunity to continue the project started this year with Honda and Fausto Gresini. My priority was in fact to work with Honda in the team run by Fausto Gresini, together with my chief mechanic Fabrizio Cecchini. In order to take this decision, I have considered first of all the technical, sports and human factors. I believe this is the best choice for my sports career and I think we have all the elements to make a good preparation during the winter test sessions, in order to grow, gain experience and fight for good results. I’d like to finish the last race of the season with a good performance. But I really look forward to next year, I’m excited to ride the new Honda V4 800cc.” TONI ELIAS RIDER PROFILE Born: 26.03.1983 Manresa (BCL) Spain Nationality: Spanish Residence: Spain Status: single Height: 163 cm Weight: 54 kg RACING RESULTS Seasons: 7 (1999-2005) GP disputed: 111(28 in motogp, 48 in 250, 35 in 125) Wins: 10 (1 in motogp, 7 in 250, 2 in 125) 2nd places : 10 (6 in 250, 4 in 125) 3rd places: 10 (7 in 250, 3 in 125) Podiums: 30 (1 in motogp 20 in 250, 9 in 125) Pole: 9 (5 in 250, 4 in 125) Fast laps 8 (1 in motogp, 6 in 250, 1 in 125)

The Ducati Marlboro Team have reached an agreement with Casey Stoner to take part in the 2007 MotoGP World Championship, with an option for the following year. The start of a new era for MotoGP, which will see 800 cc bikes taking the place of the 990 cc powered machines, also marks the start of a fresh chapter in Ducati. Following the first positive tests carried out with the Desmosedici GP7, the Borgo Panigale-based team are looking to the future with confidence and have decided to offer an opportunity to the talented young Australian. With the benefit of Loris Capirossi’s enormous experience and the support of the entire team, Casey can now get to grips with the new technical package that will be made available to him and fully demonstrate the great talent that he has already expressed this year on his debut in the top category. Casey Stoner “I am really happy to have been given this opportunity to race with the Ducati Marlboro Team next year. Ducati have made a lot of progress in the last couple of years and I think they can also do a great job with the new 800. It’s a great privilege for me to be Loris Capirossi’s team-mate. I watched him race before I started my career and now it’s a real honour to be in the same team as him on the same bike. Finally I’d like to thank Lucio Cecchinello. We have worked well together over the years but I feel that the possibility of racing in a factory team is the best thing for my future”. Claudio Domenicali (Ducati Corse Managing Director and Ducati Director of Product Development) “It’s always nice to welcome someone to our large family but it is just as difficult to say goodbye to someone who leaves. We are at the end of a season that has given us great satisfaction but which on the other hand has proved to have been particularly difficult for Sete. Despite his devotion and his undoubted talent, a number of factors have prevented him from obtaining the results to live up to everyone’s expectations. Our heartfelt thanks go out to him for his commitment and professionalism and we wish him all the best for his future. I am delighted to welcome Casey to Ducati. He is a very promising rider, with talent and determination in abundance. We are sure that with the help of our and Loris’s experience, he will get to know our bike and his experience will mature in line with the development of the GP7. With his enthusiasm and aggressive riding style, Casey is sure to give our fans some extraordinary emotions, in the best spirit of Ducati”.