Catchfence

Zach Veach Added His Fourth Top-Five Finish of the 2011 USF2000 Season

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (May. 29, 2011) While Andretti Autosport will field multiple cars in Sunday’s centennial Indianapolis 500, the team’s developmental drivers where competing in the annual “Night Before the 500” event at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis Saturday evening. Zach Veach, who made his first points start at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis for the team in 2010, finished where he qualified in the 2nd position, improving his previous finish of 4th.

“We had a good car, who put in his fourth top-five finish of the 2011 season. “We were just a little off Petri but I think we have really good momentum for Milwaukee, and if we can keep this up we should be battling for the championship in the last few races with the Zakosi Data Backup Mazda. The yellow [full-course caution] really helped me because it gave me a chance to cool the tires and settle things down. We had a good car; we were just missing a little bit.”

The “Mazda Road to Indy” Drivers opened the weekend with a summit at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the drivers competing at the various three levels that comprised INDYCAR’s developmental ladder system.

In addition to iRacing, a CARA Charities Fashion Show, and various media and sponsor obligations, Veach was kept quite busy heading into the race weekend at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis.

Practice for the “Night Before the 500” began in succession with Miller Lite Carb Day, Friday, May 27, with Veach putting down the fastest lap of the three-hour session on the 0.686-mile oval just outside of Indianapolis.

Veach and Petri Suvanto would take turns atop the speed charts throughout the final two practice sessions on Saturday, May 28th. Veach fell no lower than third on the speed charts throughout the practice sessions heading into qualifications, which would set the field for the Saturday evening feature event.

After a nearly three-hour rain delay, the green flag flew late in the evening Saturday with Suvanto leading the field followed closely by Veach, who started 1-2 respectively. Suvanto won flag-to-flag but without a tough fight from Veach.

With just a few weeks away from the racetrack after Indianapolis, Veach will return for round six of the 2011 USF2000 National Championship Series schedule at The Milwaukee Mile. The race weekend will open on June 16 with a promoter test day followed with practice and qualifications on June 17 and 18, respectively, with the race set for Sunday, June 19, as a support race for the IZOD IndyCar Series return to Wisconsin.

Until then, Veach will release his June 2011 diary entry with a recap of his 2011 ‘month of May’ experiences for RACER Magazine in the sixth installment of his exclusive blog for the popular autoracing publications on Wednesday, June 1.

Sanctioned by INDYCAR, the USF2000 National Championship, presented by Cooper Racing Tires and powered by Mazda, is one of three series part of both INDYCAR’s “Mazda Road to Indy” ladder system and the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development driver program.

For more information, please visit www.zachveach.com, www.AndrettiAutosport.com.

About Zach Veach
Zach “Ziggy” Veach is a 16-year-old autoracing driver who competes in INDYCAR’s ‘Mazda Road to Indy’ USF2000 National Championship Series, an important open-wheel stepping-stone to a career in the IZOD IndyCar Series and Indianapolis 500. In 2011, Veach captured the USF2000 Cooper Tires Winterfest Championship, on the heels of placing fifth in the 2010 season, despite missing two race events. In 2010, Michael Andretti signed Veach to his team, Andretti Autosport, while also being named one of CNN’s “Intriguing People” and was also nominated for Sports Illustrated “Sports Kid of the Year” award. In addition to his racing, Veach is an advocate for safer driving in conjunction with Oprah Winfrey’s “No Phone Zone,” and is the national spokesperson for FocusDriven, an advocacy group for victims of motor vehicle crashes involving drivers using their cell phones, and the group endorsed by Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and the DOT. In 2010, Veach released his first published Android application through his phone-app building company, ZaAPP, releasing urTXT, in the Marketplace for Android to help consumers avoid dangerous text messaging while driving and helms his own safe driving program, Ziggy’s Safe Driving, which hits 25 markets across the country each year. Veach has been a guest or profiled on a variety of national platforms including NBC’s The Today Show, CNN’s Headline News, ABCNews.com, Oprah Radio’s The Gayle King Show, The Los Angeles Times, AOL.com and is a blogger for RACER magazine. The son of a national truck and tractor-pulling champion, Veach entered his sophomore year of high school this past fall and released his first book, 99 THINGS TEENS WISH THEY KNEW BEFORE TURNING 16, on March 2, 2011. For more information, please visit www.zachveach.com.

- Veach Racing, Press Release