MONTEREY, Ca — Sept. 18, 2011) – Zach Veach needed just the two starts his Andretti Autosport team awarded him to put in a podium result in only his second start in the Star Mazda Championship Series presented by Goodyear. Veach recorded a best qualifying effort in Star Mazda with his fourth-place starting position before going on to finish third at Mazda Raceway Lunga Seca.
"Today was only my second qualifying session in the Star Mazda Championship,” said Veach. “The track was dirty, but we managed to get a pretty good time in. My time held pole up until about seven minutes to go. I ended up in fourth, so we were happy to be starting in the second row for my second Star Mazda race. We made some changes to the car after qualifying, but we didn’t go far enough in the right direction. I’m definitely still learning the car. The Andretti Autosport crew did a fantastic job getting things ready for me. I feel for Sage [Karam] and what happened at the beginning of the race. After that, we just had a really consistent race and held third all the way until the end. I have to thank Andretti Autosport for this opportunity, as well as Replay XD and Zakosi Data Backup for all of their support."
On the heels of wrapping his full-time gig in the Cooper Tires presents the USF2000 National Championship powered by Mazda where he recorded eight top-five results and finished four in series’ points, the ESPN The Magazine-named NEXT athlete Veach was given a two-race opportunity one rung up on the ‘Mazda Road to Indy’ developmental ladder system sanctioned by INDYCAR in Star Mazda.
In the first Star Mazda race of his career, Veach qualified eighth and finished seventh at Infineon Raceway, noting that the added downforce and higher horsepower (250 vs 170 in USF2000) where big improvements from his USF2000 machine. In his second and final start of the 2011 season, the 5’2 teen opened the weekend mid-pack on the speed charts at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca with a best practice time of seventh quick before entering qualifications. Veach advanced three positions to put in his best qualifying effort in Star Mazda with a fourth-place starting position.
Before cutting his teeth in Star Mazda, Veach spent two seasons in USF2000. Andretti Autosport signed the sixteen-year-old in February 2010 much later than the rest of the field after Veach had planned to compete in the Atlantic Championship Series before the series seized operations. With the late addition to the series, Veach missed out on the first two rounds of the USF2000 schedule on the Streets of St. Petersburg, before going on to finish fifth in series’ points.
In 2011, Veach took two race wins and three pole positions to capture the inaugural Cooper Tires presents the USF2000 Winterfest Championship and opened his first full-season in USF2000 with a win from the pole position at Sebring International Raceway. Veach impressively finished within the top-10 in all of his races this season in USF2000, which led to his team, Andretti Autosport, capturing the team championship.
Veach will blog about his two-race experience in his monthly RACER magazine blog.
Zakosi Data Backup, sponsor for the #77 car, offers fast, affordable, secure, managed and unmanaged online data backup to small to medium-sized businesses. In addition to Zakosi, Replay XD, Retail Pro, ArtRotando.com, ADS IT Solutions, Arai Helmets and OMP Racing are partners on the #77 effort.
After his two successful races in the Star Mazda Championship Series, Veach is likely to move up to the series full-time in 2012, with an announcement expected in the coming months.
Marketing partnerships are available with Zach Veach and Andretti Autosport at multiple levels for the 2012 season. Please contact Klint Briney at Klint@BRANDedMGMT.com for further details.
Sanctioned by INDYCAR, the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear is one of two series part of both INDYCAR's Road to Indy ladder system and the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development driver program.
