Joey drove an incredible race finishing 3rd by a nose on Saturday in the 6th race of the VW Jetta TDI Cup Series at Road America, WI. Joey qualified 5th with a time of 2:39.610 (over 2 seconds faster than his best practice time) but he was given a 5 position penalty from the previous race (failure to give sufficient racing room to another driver) so he had to start 10th out of 26 cars. With the top 10 cars all qualifying within one second of the pole position time of 2:38.921, there was very little doubt that Joey would have his work cut out for him.

The 4.048 mile race track is world famous for it’s 14 challenging turns, 3 high-speed straights and its many dramatic elevation changes as the track follows the sweeping, rolling hills of the glacially-formed terrain of south central Wisconsin.

It should be noted that this was the first twilight race in years at Road America with the green flag waving for the start less than a half hour before sunset and all the drivers had their headlights on for the entire race.

The race was extremely exciting right from the green flag as Joey moved up from 10th to 6th on the first lap, to 5th on the second lap, and then held onto 5th for the third and fourth laps. A full course yellow kept everyone in those positions for the next two laps and on the restart, Joey moved up into 4th and held on to that position for another two laps. Another crash brought out a full course yellow for two more laps, bringing the entire field back into a tight single file formation.

With only three laps remaining on the restart (less than 9 minutes), Joey had to make a move now and do it carefully. Out of turn 5, he was able to move into 3rd position on lap 9, however, he couldn’t hold onto it and slipped back into 4th place on lap 10. On the last lap, as the top five cars rounded turn 12, the leader went wide allowing an opportunity for the next three cars to make a move. Joey found himself side by side with Andy Lee as they came out of turn 13 racing upthe hill and into turn 14. Neither driver blinked and they came out of turn 14 still side by side, racing neck & neck for the finish line! It looked like a drag race as they went up the hill onto the final straight and the checkered flag! The finish was so close that the race officials had to review the cameras to confirm that Joey had captured 3rd by barely 3 feet ahead of Andy! What an incredible finish to a really great race!

With this 3rd place finish, Joey is now tied for 2nd place in the points standings for VW Jetta TDI Cup Series with four races remaining.