15-year-old Zach “Ziggy” Veach is a race car driver for Andretti Autosport in the Indy Racing League’s “Road to Indy” ladder program in the USF2000 National Championship Series presented by Mazda.

Veach was named to CNN’s “Intriguing People” list in May 2010 and has been featured through numerous media outlets including being featured on The Gayle King Show.

In addition to his racing, Veach is leveraging his youth and unusual occupation as a platform to expose fellow drivers to the dangers associated with driving while distracted, serving as a spokesKID for many programs. He is the developer of urTXT, a Droid application, to fight texting behind the wheel. He is also an advocate for safer driving in conjunction with Oprah Winfrey’s “No Phone Zone” and the national spokesperson for FocusDriven, an advocacy group for victims of motor vehicle crashes involving drivers using their cell phones. He’s even created a safe driving program, Ziggy’s Safe Driving, which he helms in race market he competes in by raising money to give 16 students better training behind the wheel of their street car.

The son of a national truck and tractor-pulling champion, Veach has been racing since age 12, going from go-karts to the cockpit of an open-wheel Formula BMW machine in just 19 months. He was set to start in the Atlantic Championship Series, but in early 2010, the Series seized operations. He then signed with Michael Andretti’s team, Andretti Autosport, the winningest team in open-wheel racing. Represented by BRANDed talent agency, Veach, urTXT and “Ziggy’s Safe Driving” can all be found online at, www.ZachVeach.com.

 

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Lindsey Gobel is a freelance author who has been featured in numerous print publications, as well as on the Web. She co-wrote another book in the 99 Series with IZOD IndyCar Series driver Sarah Fisher, titled, “99 Things Women Wish They Knew Before Getting Behind the Wheel of Their Dream Job”; released in May 2010. She received her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis, where she earned high honors. She won the 2009 JSO Media Competition award for her profile story on a recovering drug user.

Gobel has a background in marketing and public relations, representing a number of local and national firms. She utilizes her creativity and experience as a journalist to develop innovative marketing concepts, while balancing client goals to manage relationships between advertising partners and the firms she represents. She can be reached at lindsey.gobel@gmail.com.

 

 

 

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