Country Joe Racing Kentucky preview

Country Joe Racing Back For Two-Car Assault On Kentucky
Miller Comes Off Strong ARCA Races, Cywinski Protecting Point Lead

LAKEVILLE, MN (September 16, 2004) -- Country Joe Racing is going to return to being a two-car ASA team this weekend at Kentucky Speedway. In addition to regular driver,and current ASA National Tour point leader, Kevin Cywinski, the team will also field a car for Joey Miller. The 19-year-old racer started out the season running a full slate of ASA events, but has concentrated on the ARCA series recently and scored a victory in his first-ever ARCA start at the Nashville Superspeedway.

This weekend Miller is back and is prepared to run at a track where the team's preparation of their racecars will be critical to the success that both he and Cywinski might enjoy.

"The driver is almost like a puppet with these cars on the big tracks," said Miller. "A tenth place car is a tenth place car. You can't do much to change that because you can't get more out of a car when it is already wide open. At the short tracks, you can drive it in a little bit harder. That doesn't help here."

Cywinski agrees.

"The cars are very stable at the big tracks," said Cywinski. "It's almost a little bit boring out there. It can be frustrating too because it's hard to pass and you have to rely on drafting."

Both Country Joe Racing drivers now have other racing experience on the larger tracks like Kentucky. Cywinski has raced in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, while Miller has two ARCA starts under his belt. Neither driver expects that to be much of an advantage this weekend though.

"So many of the guys in this series have run these tracks," said Cywinski. "Bryan Reffner, Reed Sorenson, Mike Garvey and Butch Miller are all used to this. Maybe all of us have an advantage over the other teams, but we have to beat each other first."

With his ARCA victory, Miller can be added to that list as well, but he's not sure that will help.

"The ASA car drives so much differently than the ARCA car, there isn't much that you can take from one to the other," said Miller. "The ASA car is wide open around this place and the ARCA car, you drive differently into the corners."

It would appear that with Cywinski leading the ASA point standings and Miller being a part-time driver on the tour, they might have different objectives for the weekend. That probably isn't the case.

"We want to go out and have fun this weekend," said Miller. "I think that we have a good chance with both cars and we just want to do the best that we can and no bend them up."

Cywinski is planning to finish the best that he can as well and not worry about points.

"To be honest, we don't care about points right now," said Cywinski. "We are going out there to win. Maybe for the last race, we might look at the points and come up with a strategy for the points, but right now we are just going to the next two races looking to win."

Earlier this season at Kentucky, Cywinski might have had a car that could have done that, but a parts failure limited him to a 28th-place finish.

"We broke a rear end gear and lost a lot of ground because of that," Cywinski said. "We changed it and got back out. When we did, we ran with the leaders. We had a good car and

we've got a good car for this race as well."

Miller finished seventh in the spring race at Kentucky.

Country Joe Racing, with Kevin Cywinski and rookie Joey Miller, is Minnesota's #1 professional racing organization.

-cjr-