Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Despite climbing into an unfamiliar car just as the field was about to roll away from the grid, Homer Glen, Illinois, native Eric Freiberg powered through the field to record a fifth place finish in Round Eight of the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear this weekend at Road America.

"To come away from this race with a top-five finish after coming so close to missing out on the event is unreal," Freiberg explained. "During the qualifying session on Friday my car expereinced some electrical problems and kept shutting down in different places around the track. The Northwest Autosport crew worked through the night replacing every electrical connection on the car but as they went to fire the car up ahead of the race the replacement wiring harness failed as well. When that happened my teammate Steve Cook climbed out of his car and offered his car to me so I could race."

With the clock running down to the start of the nineteen lap event, being run as part of a combined American Le Mans Series and Champ Car World Series race weekend, the team worked frantically to switch Freiberg's seat to Cook's car and to make as many of the adjustments to the car to suit Freiberg's driving style, getting Freiberg to the grid just in time to make the event.

"The last few minutes were crazy as we rushed to get everything adjusted in the new car and I tried to feel out the car during the pace lap to get an idea how it would handle for me during the race," the twenty-one year old North Central College student explained. "When the green flag flew I made some aggressive moves and was able to bring the car up through the field, running as high as third place for a bit before the handling fell off a bit and a dropped back to fifth. I would've loved to have captured a podium but I'll take a fifth place without complaint after how things looked earlier and words can't begin to describe how thankful I am to Steve for letting me race in his car, he made this happen today."

With the fifth place finish Freiberg moves into a tie for eleventh place with Charles Anti with four races remaining in the 2007 championship. "I'm really looking forward to the next two weekends and the races in Trois-Rivieres and Mosport as the team is working really hard and we've got some good momentum going forward," Freiberg commented. "When we tested at Mosport last month we were quick and the team is going to get my car back up to speed with a new engine and wiring harness."

Round Eight of the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear will be aired on Speed Channel on Saturday, August 18th at 3:00 PM Eastern Time.

Round Nine of the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear will be the feature event on the street circuit in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, on Sunday, August 15th.