19-year-old Blake Bjorklund was picked up by Dave Malcomson’s MRD Motorsports team out of Charlotte, NC for the 2005 Craftsman Truck Series season. Bjorklund will run 7 to 14 races for the team during the 2005 season. Bjorklund will be running the #06 Chevy Silverado for MRD Motorsports and will start his season on Saturday, April 9th at Martinsville Speedway. Bjorklund has experience at Lowe’s Motor Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway competing in the last two ASA events. Bjorklund proved to be a strong contender with an impressive twelfth place finish in Atlanta in only his second ASA start. In 2004, Bjorklund took home Rookie of the Year Honors in the Midwest All-Star Racing Series (MARS), finishing the season second place in overall points. With numerous wins, Bjorklund is the youngest driver in addition to the first Minnesota driver to ever win a MARS touring event.(autoracingtracks.com)(3-4-2005)
UPDATE – Not True? folks at MRD Motorsports are telling me this is not true and they expect to make a driver announcement in a few days.(3-6-2005)
UPDATE./CORRECTION Driver named: Dave Malcolmson announced the signing of open wheel racing standout Jimmy Kite (Stockbridge, Ga.) to race for MRD Motorsports in the World Financial Group 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway (AMS). Kite, a four-time Indianapolis 500 starter and regular on the IndyCar Series since 1997, will be making his debut in a NASCAR-sanctioned event driving the #06 MRD Motorsports Chevrolet Silverado at his home track on March 18th. MRD Motorsports, of Concord, N.C., entered ten Craftsman Truck Series races in its debut last season. Atlanta will be MRD’s first start of 2005. Despite this being his first NASCAR event, Kite is no stranger to stock car racing or to AMS. In fact, the 1.54-mile, Hampton, Ga. oval was the site of Kite’s premiere in stock car racing in March of 1998 when he drove an ARCA series entry for Team Scandia. He followed that with a second ARCA start later that season at Michigan Speedway while working as a test driver for Scandia’s Winston Cup (now Nextel Cup) and Busch Grand National efforts. Kite also has IndyCar experience at the track with events in 1999 and 2000.
The MRD Motorsports operation, headed by Malcolmson and crew chief Bryan Berry (Concord, N.C.), entered the Craftsman Truck Series last season with a limited schedule. The #06 will again run a limited schedule in 2005 while pursuing marketing partnerships that would allow the team to contend for the championship in 2006. MRD Motorsports has previously been involved in the Allison Legacy Series and Goody’s Dash Series. A ninth-place at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the 2004 season-closer marks the team’s career high finish in the Truck Series. To learn more about Jimmy Kite, please visit www.jimmykite.com and for more on MRD Motorsports Team go to www.teammrd.com which is launching on the web March 16, 2005.(MRD Motorsports PR)(3-9-2005)
