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The Animals Are Pulling for Prendeville In Sunday's Indy Pro Series Race at Mid-Ohio
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07/20/2007
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Racing Laps for Best Friends Poised for Good Results
On and Off the Track This Weekend at Watkins Glen
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By Linda Mansfield, Restart Communications
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LEXINGTON, Ohio, July 20 - Madge, a puppy that
recently found a new home thanks to the Best
Friends Animal Society, wants Andrew Prendeville
to finish all 40 laps of Sunday's Indy Pro
Series race at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
So do the other 1,499 animals that can be found
on any given day at the Best Friends Animal
Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah, plus other animals at
shelters that Best Friends helps here in Ohio
and throughout the world.
They'll all be rooting for Prendeville to do
well
because Prendeville is trying to activate race
fans
all over the world to help them.
He developed a special program called Racing
Laps
for Best Friends to encourage donations to the
not-for-profit organization, which operates the
largest no-kill animal sanctuary in the United
States.
Through a website he developed called
racinglapsforbestfriends.com (this website),
fans
can pledge monetary donations to Best Friends
based on the number of laps he completes in each
Indy Pro Series race with his RLR/Andersen
Racing/
Best Friends Animal Society No. 5. At $1 per lap
for
a 40-lap race such as Sunday's Indy Pro Series
race at
Mid-Ohio, the donation would be $40. If the car
would
only complete 25 laps, then the donation would
be $25.
Donations in any amount from 25 cents and up per
lap can be pledged
using the Web site and a major credit card.
Other ways to contribute include calling the
sanctuary at
(435) 644-2001, extension 4801, or by mailing
checks payable to
'Racing Laps for Best Friends' to:
Best Friends Animal Society
5001 Angel Canyon Road
Kanab, Utah 84741-5000
Best Friends hopes the exposure to race fans
will raise
awareness of the
organization and gain support for animal
welfare. The organization tries
to help all animals, no matter
what their
physical
condition. Often animals that can't be
placed by
local animal shelters live their lives out at
Best Friends' sanctuary. Even animals displaced
by
Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq can be
found
there.
According to a Best Friends spokesperson,
the not-for-profit organization handles about
135
cases a year from Ohio. They involve things such
as help
with trapping feral cats and treating them,
finding homes
for dogs and cats, and information on no-kill
shelters in
the local area.
Best Friends has been working with Mark Kumpf,
director
of the Montgomery County Animal Resource Center
in
Dayton, Ohio, on the statewide issue of
breed-specific
legislation, which will affect the entire state.
Best Friends is
trying to move the focus from breed-specific
legislation to instead address the issue of
problem dogs, regardless of breed.
Ohio was also one of the states that was of
great assistance to Best Friends in taking
Katrina animals it had rescued from the New
Orleans area. One shelter, Tender Loving Care in
Medina, Ohio, fostered and found homes for
animals from Tylertown, Miss., which is directly
north of New Orleans. There were several other
shelters throughout the state that also helped
foster and find homes for Best Friends' Katrina
rescues.
Madge, the puppy Prendeville met during a visit
to Best Friends in March, didn't have such an
exotic background. She and some siblings were
simply left in a crate one day at the sanctuary.
She has since been adopted and is living in Las
Vegas.
Prendeville, 25, of Morristown, N.J., drives for
RLR/Andersen Racing of Fairfield, N.J. Andersen
Racing is the official Indy Pro Series team of
Hilliard, Ohio-based Rahal Letterman Racing.
Although Sunday marks the first Indy Pro Series
race ever at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course,
Prendeville has had much success there driving
in other series. In 11 previous starts at
Mid-Ohio in formula cars he's won five times and
been on the podium eight times. The other three
finishes were a fifth, a seventh and a DNF. One
of those victories was the SCCA Formula
Continental national championship at the
Valvoline Runoffs in 2002.
Prendeville worked at the Mid-Ohio School as an
instructor in 2005, and has logged well over
2,500 laps there in the last five years.
Qualifying is slated for Saturday morning, with
the 40-lap or 60-minute Indy Pro Series race
starting at 10:45 a.m. on Sunday. It will be
broadcast on ESPN2 on Thursday, July 26 at 5:30
p.m. Eastern time. Live timing and scoring will
be offered at indycar.com/pro.
For more information see
racinglapsforbestfriends.com, bestfriends.org
and andersenracingteam.com.
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