Past Le Mans winner and SPEED talent Justin Bell is part of the American Le Mans Series’ television team for 2009

Son of the legendary Derek Bell, Justin runs and owns motoguru.com, a popular video site that features sports car coverage as well as car reviews. His blog will appear regularly on americanlemans.com, including this one that announces an once-in-a-lifetime venture with Jay Leno.

A quick news flash!

The new Jay Leno Show started this weekend at 10 p.m. on NBC, and I am excited to have a small role on what will certainly be one of the most high profile weekly chat shows of the year!

As is well known, Jay is a huge car guy and so he has built a very cool small racetrack at the studios, where each week celebrities will race a purpose-built Ford Focus with a high-tech Electric power plant – against the clock in a segment called the Celebrity Green Challenge.

My job is to host the celebrity and train him/her on how to drive the car and track ­ all of which will be recorded and made into a show for the high-profile NBC web site, so I will be able to have a pretty cool presence as part of the show. About an hour later when the show goes out live I will be there to manage the driving element for Jay, although he will be the one hosting the segment for the moment.

So you shouldnÂąt expect to see me doing a standup on the main show! But this is a huge opportunity for me as I try and develop my TV career as I am learning so much about how they do things on a major TV show.

Jay is being very generous with including me in the pre-show publicity as he keeps reminding me, “Do you know just how big this is for you?”

Aside from this, I will still be a regular pit-lane host for SPEED with the American Le Mans Series which is a gig I enjoy (our next race being next week’s Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta). I also have moved the whole family out to LA and will continue to work closely on the fantastic Devon GTX Supercar project based in Culver City, which is a project that I am tremendously passionate about.

Also very importantly, motorguru.com will continue to grow but we expect some cool crossover content from my new job with Leno!

Our first celebrity race guest will be Drew Barrymore, which is extremely cool, and we expect her to be very fast! So the first show that I have an involvement with is on Friday the 19th, so check it out and visit the web site at thejaylenoshow.com.

The 12th annual Petit Le Mans powered by MAZDA6 is Saturday, September 26. The Series’ cornerstone event at Road Atlanta in Braselton Ga., is a 1,000-mile/10-hour endurance classic. The green flag is scheduled for 11:15 a.m. ET with SPEED airing live television coverage starting at 11 a.m. ET.

American Le Mans Radio presented by Porsche and Living Timing & Scoring will be available on Racehub at americanlemans.com.

The race will also mark the ninth round of the 2009 MICHELIN® GREEN X® Challenge. Tickets are available at americanlemans.com and roadatlanta.com.

source: ALMS