Zach Veach chats with Rick Sassone of Rocket Sports & Entertainment at the 2011 Media Day Kart Races (March 8, 2011), Veach a member of the Rocket Sports & Entertainment team, locked up a second place finish behind IZOD Series driver Alex Tagliani (RSEN photo by Rodney Meyering)

Mazda Road to Indy Driver Zach Veach is Featured in the Sept. 2011 Issue of the ESPN Publication

courtesy of Zach Veach PR

BRISTOL, CT (Sept. 8, 2011) – ESPN The Magazine, the magazine for young men who want to stay on top of athletes, teams, topics, and upcoming events in the sports world with ESPN’s unique personality and authority, today announced that “Mazda Road to Indy” driver Zach Veach would be featured in the ESPN publication’s Sept. 19, 2011 issue as a NEXT athlete, on newsstands Friday, Sept. 9.

“It’s a huge honor for me to be featured as a NEXT athlete,” said Veach. “In sports, a major component of being successful is having the respect and credibility in your particular space and for me that is in the motorsports industry. To have a powerhouse like ESPN name me NEXT in the motorsports arena is really humbling and I can’t thank them enough for the opportunity.”

ESPN sports network, The Worldwide Leader in Sports, launched ESPN The Magazine in 1998 as a bi-weekly sports publication through its parent company ESPN, Inc. part of The Walt Disney Company/Hearst Corporation.

With a circulation of 2.2 million, the magazine features Veach as a NEXT athlete, which recognizes one or more athletes each issue, as a future leader or trailblazer in their respective sport. Historically, these athletes have gone on to exceptional careers, with past features including, LeBron James, Michelle Wie, Reggie Bush, and Kobe Bryant, to name a few.

The 16-year-old Veach just capped his full-time gig in the USF2000 National Championship Series fourth in series’ points. Earlier this year, he took two race wins and three pole positions to capture the inaugural Cooper Tires presents the USF2000 Winterfest Championship and opened the season with a win from the pole position going on to secure eight top-five finishes on the season.

Veach’s Andretti Autosport team rewarded the teen athlete with a two-race opportunity to compete alongside fellow teammate and close friend Sage Karam in the Star Mazda Championship series, the next step in the “Mazda Road to Indy” developmental ladder system.

The CNN-named “Intriguing” Veach finished seventh after qualifying eighth in his Star Mazda debut at Infineon Raceway in August and will make his final start of 2011 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in his No. 77 Zakosi Data Backup Mazda.

Veach’s profile in ESPN The Magazine also includes a 360-degree look at the 5’2” racer in the iPad edition of the Sept. 19 issue, which features a tribute to 9/11 on the cover.

For more information please visit www.ESPNTheMag.com or www.ZachVeach.com.

About ESPN:
ESPN, Inc., The Worldwide Leader in Sports, is the leading multinational, multimedia sports entertainment company featuring the broadest portfolio of multimedia sports assets with over 50 business entities. Based in Bristol, Conn., with 3,800 employees (6,500 worldwide) ESPN Plaza includes 900,000 square feet in 17 buildings on 116 acres, with additional office space (400,000 sq. ft.) rented nearby. The company is 80 percent owned by ABC, Inc., an indirect subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. The Hearst Corporation holds a 20 percent interest in ESPN. For more information, please visit www.espnmediazone3.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 and Star Mazda Championship Series, important open-wheel stepping-stones 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 Veach was 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. 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.

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