For media information:
Linda Mansfield, Restart Communications
Cell: (317) 201-0729
E-mail: LindaKMansfield@cs.com
(Photos are available)
Small Businesses and Individual Supporters
Rally Around Local Driver So He Can
Compete at Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach
PALMETTO, Fla., April 8 - Joel Miller's talent in pushing the pedals and
cranking the wheel were important of course, but pounding the pavement is what
got the 21-year-old from Hesperia, Calif. a ride in the Firestone Indy
Lights race at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on Sunday, April 18.
Miller lives about 70 miles from the street course in Long Beach, Calif.,
and he's been dreaming of competing there since he attended his first Long
Beach Grand Prix a decade ago, when he was 11.
He's paid his dues.
He's racked up all sorts of accomplishments in karting, Skip Barber,
USF2000 and Star Mazda. He's a past winner of the Team USA Scholarship and the
John Gorsline Scholarship. After earning the championship in the BF Goodrich
Skip Barber National presented by Mazda in 2007, he earned yet another
scholarship from Mazda that helped pay for a full season of Star Mazda
competition the following year. He made good use of it, finishing second in the Star
Mazda championship in 2008.
The following season he got picked up by Andersen Racing of Palmetto, Fla.,
a team that has rewritten the book on driver development. It has its own
1-mile road course test track; a regional, national and international karting
team; its principals run the USF2000 National Championship presented by
Cooper Tires and powered by Mazda; and it fields multi-car Star Mazda and
Firestone Indy Lights teams.
Andersen Racing ran Miller in the Star Mazda series in 2009. (He finished
fifth.) It tested him in a Firestone Indy Lights car twice; once in 2008 at
Sebring International Raceway in Sebring, Fla., and again last December at
Palm Beach International Raceway in Jupiter, Fla.
The team co-owners, brothers Dan and John Andersen, liked what they saw.
They wanted Miller in Firestone Indy Lights and he desperately wanted to run
one of their cars in that series, which is the final step before the IZOD
IndyCar Series in the Road to Indy program. As is often the problem in such an
expensive sport, however, money was the stumbling block, and it kept Miller
parked.
He didn't like it, and on Monday he'd had enough. With a gulp of air for
confidence and a smile on his face, he took all the tenacity he could muster
and jumped in his 2006 VW GT1 (which has over 100,000 miles on it but is
paid for), and hit the road.
"I literally just took off driving from home to Long Beach, and I visited
every single company and person I knew along the way," Miller said. "I
started when the first place opened and I stopped when they were closed. My dad
has a little electrical contracting shop, and he has been keeping people
informed about how my racing has been going. Even if I didn't know them but Dad
did, I stopped by.
"You can't walk into a small company and throw a big figure at them and
expect them to be able to do anything with you," Miller said. "But with
smaller amounts from a lot of different companies and individuals added together,
by the end of the day I was able to get close enough to call Dan and say I
think I can do it. I still have some more calls to make, but I feel
confident I'll have enough by the race weekend."
What was his sales pitch?
"I just asked them if they would help a local kid," Miller said. "I'm a
local guy, and there were only two Americans who ran in the season opener in
St. Petersburg, Fla. - Jonathan Summerton, who is from Florida, and Charlie
Kimball, who is from Camarillo, Calif. Charlie is local too, but I really
want to drive at Long Beach. I came up through the local karting ranks just
like Joey Hand did. He got to drive Atlantics at Long Beach and we all looked
up to him for that. Now I'm out of karting, and I want to be able to drive
at Long Beach too."
Now he's going to, thanks to the following people and companies: Doug
Mockett of Mockett and Co., John Wilkins of Rancho Motor Co., Vance Mitchell of
The Mitchell Co., Seers Lumber Co., Daniel Singh, Joe Phillips and Greg
Ewald. "Doug Mockett is a long-time supporter; he's helped me since I did Team
USA," Miller noted.
Miller is still soliciting other companies and individuals for funds to
help make his appearance at Long Beach - and hopefully other races - a reality.
He knows how to add it all up. He took some time off from school to pursue
his racing career, but he's currently a junior mechanical engineering major
at the University of California, Riverside. Last quarter he recorded a 3.1
grade point average. When he was graduated from Hesperia Christian School
High School in 2006, he did so as the salutatorian of his class with a 4.0
GPA.
But racing is still his career goal. "This is a one-off ride now, but I
hope to turn it into more," Miller said. "This will be the only street course
race I've done except for the airport course at Cleveland, if you want to
call that a street course, and Trois-Rivieres in Quebec. I did those races
in Star Mazda."
If the course and the series will be knew to him, he'll have some familiar
faces in the paddock and pits. "I'll be working with Yancy Diotalevi, who
was my lead engineer on the Andersen Racing Star Mazda team," Miller said.
"It's great for me, because Yancy and I already know each other and get along.
And there are other people on the Andersen Racing team that I'll get to
work with again too, so that'll be great!"
One challenge has already cropped up, though. "I'm trying to find tickets
and passes for all my sponsors," Miller said.
Miller will drive Andersen Racing's No. 5 car, while another rookie, Carmen
Jorda of Alcoy, Spain, will be in the team's No. 4 machine.
The Firestone Indy Lights schedule for the weekend shows practice sessions
on Friday, April 16 at 12:15 p.m. and Saturday, April 17 at 8 a.m. followed
by qualifying at 12:55 p.m. Saturday afternoon. There is a warm-up session
at 8 a.m. Sunday, April 18 before the 45-lap race gets underway at 10:40
a.m. It precedes the IZOD IndyCar race that will get the green flag at 1:15
p.m. All those times are local.
Live timing and scoring and video coverage of the Firestone Indy Lights
race are slated for indycar.com and indycar.com/indylights. Other information
on Andersen Racing, which is sponsored by Allied Building Products Corp., is
on line at andersenracingteam.com. Miller's Web site is located at
joelmillerracing.com.
About Allied Building Products Corp.:
Allied Building Products Corp., headquartered in East Rutherford, N.J., is
one of the largest roofing and siding distributors in the United States.
Founded in 1950 with five employees and two trucks, today it is a $1.8 billion
building material distribution company with over 3,500 employees, more than
200 branches in 30 states, well over one million square feet of office and
warehouse space, and an inventory of approximately 85,000 products, from
residential roofing and siding to doors, windows, waterproofing, manufactured
stone, interior products and commercial roofing systems. For more information
see alliedbuilding.com.
About Andersen Racing:
Andersen Racing strives to provide the best and most comprehensive training
possible for future open-wheel superstars while giving its marketing
partners media exposure and hospitality opportunities at some of the most
prestigious events in North America. It provides a unique program utilizing multiple
entries in three different platforms: karting, Star Mazda and Firestone
Indy Lights.
A sister company, Andersen Promotions, administers the USF2000 National
Championship presented by Cooper Tires and powered by Mazda. It is part of
both the Indy Racing League's Road to Indy program and the MAZDASPEED
Motorsports driver development system.
Andersen Racing is sponsored by Allied Building Products Corp. The team is
headquartered at Andersen RacePark, an 18-acre facility in Palmetto, Fla.
that includes a 1-mile road course test track. For more information see
andersenracingteam.com, andersenkarting.com, andersenracepark.com and usf2000.com.