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NEW RICHMOND, WI - July 20, 2010 - Tim Fuller made quite an impression on Cedar Lake Speedway’s fans during his first-ever visit to the Badger State track one year ago.

The resident of Watertown, N.Y., is hoping to earn even more attention from the three-eighths-mile oval’s faithful when he returns on Aug. 5-7 for the 23rd annual USA Nationals presented by United States Steel Corporation, which this season is part of the World of Outlaws Late Model Series that Fuller follows on a fulltime basis.

“We had a great time at Cedar Lake last year,” said Fuller, a superstar in the Northeast’s DIRTcar big-block Modified ranks before switching his focus to the dirt Late Model division in 2007. “I really liked the place and the whole atmosphere of the event – they host a very good party. I would love to go back there this year and win the big one.”

Fuller, 42, sparkled in his 2009 Cedar Lake debut, winning the traditional Thursday-night tune-up event that was then run under the World Dirt Racing League banner (this year’s $5,000-to-win preliminary show, on Thurs., Aug. 5, will be sanctioned by DIRTcar Racing’s UMP circuit) and finishing second in Saturday’s 100-lap USA Nationals finale. He led 54 of the first 56 laps in the headliner before being overtaken by Jimmy Mars of Menomonie, Wis., who went on to capture the prestigious race’s $50,000 top prize for the second time in his career but first since 1996.

Last year’s assault on the unsanctioned USA Nationals was a last-minute decision for Fuller, who headed to the Upper Midwest just days after he snapped a 46-race winless streak on the WoO LMS with a triumph at Sharon Speedway in Hartford, Ohio. He sure was glad he made the trip after pocketing $25,000 for his weekend of work, including a $20,000 runner-up check from the USA Nationals’ industry-leading $250,000-plus purse.

That lucrative take-home pay left Fuller feeling very good despite falling one position short of the first crown-jewel event victory in his short dirt Late Model career.

“You don’t see me get passed for the lead and finish second and still smile,” an upbeat Fuller told DirtonDirt.com after last year’s USA Nationals. “I got beat by a guy that had the better car.”

Fuller, who started second in the USA Nationals, conceded that he simply wasn’t strong enough to repel Mars once the track surface changed midway through last year’s event.

“We were really good on Thursday night and we were rolling for the first half of the 100-lapper,” said Fuller, who followed up his ’09 USA Nationals performance with a record-tying four-race win streak on the WoO LMS. “But we weren’t as good in the (hard) condition as Mars was. I had to slow down so much in the corners to stay on the bottom, and he was free enough to draw up on the outside and roll by me.

“I would’ve loved to win that race, but hey – it was our first time there and Mars was really going good at the time, so I couldn’t be disappointed. We’ll just go back and hope what we learned last year will help make us better.”

Of course, Fuller would like to bring his Gypsum Express Rocket car to Cedar Lake with the type of momentum he carried into last year’s USA Nationals – and at the moment he doesn’t have any. The good vibes of his back-to-back WoO LMS events on June 15 at New York’s Can-Am Motorsports Park and June 17 at Ontario’s Merrittville Speedway have long disappeared; he’s gone without a top-10 finish in his last 10 starts on the national tour, dropping him from fifth in the points standings (84 points out of the lead) to a dismal eighth (264 points behind).

Fuller ended the month of June with a struggled-filled ‘Firecracker 100’ weekend at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa., and has been “terrible, just terrible” ever since. Exacerbating his slump was the emergency appendectomy he underwent on July 5 – surgery that left him too sore to race competitively in the four-race ‘Wild West Tour’ that ran from July 7-10.

“I wrote the Tennessee trip (on July 2-3) off because I’m not usually good on tracks with really big banks and then the western trip was a big nothing because of the appendicitis,” said Fuller, who finally felt back to normal physically when he returned to his DIRTcar big-block Modified roots for three nights of action in upstate New York last weekend. “Hopefully after we go to some tracks we were good at last year (as part of the five-race WoO LMS Ohio-Pennsylvania Speedweek that runs from July 27-Aug. 1) we’ll be back on track (for Cedar Lake).”

Fuller will be looking to join a star-studded group of former USA Nationals winners who are expected to participate in this year’s edition of the event, including Mars, five-time winner and three-time WoO LMS titlist Billy Moyer of Batesville, Ark., Scott Bloomquist of Mooresburg, Tenn. (four-time victor and 2004 WoO LMS titlist), Brian Birkhofer of Muscatine, Iowa (2007 and 2004 winner), Dale McDowell of Chickamauga, Ga. (2005) and WoO LMS regular Rick Eckert of York, Pa. (2002).

The field will also include such talents as former WoO LMS champions Steve Francis of Ashland, Ky. (top Nationals finish of third in 2005, 2002 and 1998), Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y. (top USA Nationals finish of third in 2009), Darrell Lanigan of Union, Ky. (two previous Nationals starts: 10th in 1995 and 13th in 2005) and Josh Richards of Shinnston, W.Va. (one previous Nationals start: 12th in 2005), plus a host of other national, regional and local standouts.

Three nights of action will comprise the 23rd annual USA Nationals presented by United States Steel Corporation, beginning with a full DIRTcar Racing UMP-sanctioned program on Thurs., Aug. 5, topped by a 40-lap A-Main. Time Trials, heat races and a dash for the USA Nationals are scheduled for Fri., Aug. 6, and B-Mains and the 100-lap finale are set for Sat., Aug. 7.

Cedar Lake’s weekly NASCAR Late Models will also contest full shows on both Friday and Saturday nights.

Hot laps are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. and on-track action at 6:30 p.m. each day.

Cedar Lake officials will once again accent the racing with an exciting array of pre- and post-race entertainment, including a Saturday-morning golf scramble at the nearby Pine Meadows Golf Course; a Ladder Ball competition at 12 noon on Saturday; the popular Apple River Tubing expedition; a luncheon on Saturday afternoon that allows ‘FansFund’ contributors an opportunity to meet the drivers they helped bring to the USA Nationals; a driver autograph/meet-and-greet session prior to Saturday night’s first green flag; go-karts in the backstretch parking lot; and the ‘Party in the Pits’ under the Big White Tent following the Thursday and Friday programs.

Advanced tickets for the USA Nationals are available by calling 612-363-0479 or by visiting www.cedarlakespeedway.com. Regular camping is sold out, but additional spots have been added and can be purchased by calling the office number.

Fans who can’t make the trip to Cedar Lake can still catch all the action through a live pay-per-view broadcast of the event over the web produced by DirtonDirt.com. Log on to www.dirtondirt.com for details.

For more information on the WoO LMS, visit www.worldofoutlaws.com.