Joey Wins the 1st Race of the
2009 VW Jetta TDI Cup Series

Joey began his SCCA PRO RACING career in quite an impressive manner by first qualifying for the pole position and then WINNING the first race of the 2009 VW Jetta TDI Cup Series. This was Joey’s FIRST time ever racing on the 3.27 mile long track at VIR and on Friday, he captured the pole position by qualifying with a 2:14.xxx which broke the existing track record for the VW Jetta TDI. The Saturday morning race thrilling to watch with the lead changing four times before Joey took back the lead on the 7th lap and held on to take the checkered flag on the 12th lap with a winning margin of just 0.524 seconds. Joey’s car, the #14 Red Bull VW Jetta TDI ran perfectly and the Pirelli tires performed great on the 120°F track temperature as Joey negotiated all of the 17 turns and two straightaways of this beautiful track. Paul Newman (actor and race car driver) described VIR as ‘Heaven on Earth.’ The skies were sunny and clear, the weather was HOT (about 90°F) and the action on the track was absolutely awesome!

There are 28 drivers (ages 16-26) on the 2009 team coming from all over the USA, Canada and Mexico, the field is exceptionally tight and fast. For the 2nd race qualifier, Joey took nearly half a second off his pole time for the 1st race, but so did many of the other drivers. In fact, only 0.8 of a second separated the first 9 cars for the start of the 2nd race on Sunday! In fact, the top 7 cars qualified under the existing track record! Midway through Sunday’s race, Joey slipped off the track in turn 3 and fell back to 14th… Unfazed (Joey says ‘Hey, stuff happens on the track and you deal with it) and so he did, racing his way all the way back up to finish in 8th place. Joey finished up the weekend tied for 1st place in the series points championship! A great start for Joey in the 2009 VW Jetta TDI Cup Series!

If all of this were not exciting enough, Joey got to meet and race with one of his idols from the world of skiing, Simon Dumont. Simon is a world renowned professional skier who was a guest driver at the 1st race at VIR this weekend. Joey got to spend some time with Simon teaching him all about the car and how to drive the track. By sheer coincidence, Joey and Simon were assigned the two Red Bull Jettas which made for a great photo op for sponsor Red Bull, as Simon is a Red Bull athlete. Here Joey shows him the optimum line through Turn 12 (Oak Tree) on the track (located at the bottom of the track map). Simon started last (28th) and with the knowledge gained from working with Joey, he finished 19 th – an excellent effort for a 1st time race car driver!

Joey gets the lead story on the SCCA Website after his win during the first race of the 2009 VW Jetta TDI Cup Series on Saturday. You can read the entire press release at: http://scca.com/newsarticle.aspx?hub=4&news=3620