The Lime Rock Park race circuit, in northwestern Connecticut USA,
which will host the inaugural rounds of the North American
Touring Car Championship as part of its ATCALL Presents The
Dodge Dealers Grand Prix on the weekend of May 24-27, hosted
a media day May 21.

Most notable announcement on the NATCC front was the naming
of David Donohue, son of the late Mark Donohue who drove
for Roger Penske in mant arenas including TransAm and Indy cars,
( and also CanAm, NASCAR, FIA Endurance, IMSA, F5000 and F1 where 
he suffered his fatal accident - a truely rounded driver - ed )
as second driver, joining Dominic Dobson, on the PacWest Dodge
Stratus team. Donohue is former champion in the Bridgestone
SuperCar series and drove early season races for BMW in
the IMSA Exxon Suprmeme Series. Donohue will concentrate
his efforts on Dodge's debut effort in 2 liter Touring Cars
for the remainder of the '96 season.

Four NATCC cars were present for the test day at Lime Rock:
the two Dodges, Rod Millen's Toyota, and Forrest Granlund's
Honda of America Racing Team Accord.

Exactly how many additional entries wil be at Lime Rock
by Saturday's opening round of the championship was a
little vague as described by NATCC's Mark Turner. T.C.
Kline is preparing an Accord, Hartong Racing reportedly
has a BMW 3series for driver Darren Law, and a Ford
Mondeo/Contour is expected, but aside from the fact
that Danny Sullivan would NOT be its driver little
other information was available. Additional entries were
also mentioned.

The NATCC cars open the weekend's on-track activities
with their first practice session at 10 a.m. on Friday,
followed by practice sessions for SCCA TransAm, Barber Dodge
Pro Series, IMSA Exxon World Sports Cars, SCCA World Challenge,
IMSA GTS2.

NATTC cars will timetrial on Saturday morning and their
first 30 minute race will start at 3:15 on Saturday. Round
2, also 30 minutes, will be Monday at 11:00 a.m.

For more information on the ATCALL presents The Dodge
Dealers Grand Prix at Lime Rock call 1800RACELRP or
email 103341.2046@compuserve.com

All typos are mine, with apologies

Greg Rickes