Miller Joins Championship-Winning Star Mazda Team

Dec 12, 2007
Minneapolis, Minn. – 2007 Team USA Scholarship winner Joel Miller will follow in the footsteps of Dane Cameron by contesting next year’s Star Mazda Championship Presented by Goodyear with the Minnesota-based JDC MotorSports team.

Both youngsters are already making their mark on the domestic auto racing scene, continuing the legacy that has been created by other Team USA Scholarship winners such as Jimmy Vasser, Bryan Herta, Jerry Nadeau, Memo Gidley, Buddy Rice, Paul Edwards, Andy Lally, Phil Giebler, and A.J. Allmendinger.

Cameron, who won a Team USA Scholarship in 2006, continued his rapid progression along the motorsports ladder in 2007 by taking three wins and six poles for JDC and becoming the first rookie in the last 10 years to claim the Star Mazda title. His prize includes a fully paid ride in the 2008 Cooper Tires Presents the Champ Car Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda, and Cameron announced recently that he will drive for the 2007 championship-winning Sierra Sierra Enterprises team.

Miller also seems to be on the fast track to higher echelons of the sport after becoming the latest beneficiary of the Mazda Driver Development program. Miller, 19, from Hesperia, Calif., earned a funded Star Mazda ride by virtue of winning this year’s BFGoodrich/Skip Barber National Presented by Mazda, with a series-high five races wins. He has high expectations for 2008 following a recent test with John Church’s JDC team, during which he struck up an excellent rapport with race engineer Rick Cameron (Dane’s father).

“Having raced in the Mazda ‘ladder’ from Karting through Skip Barber, the move into Star Mazda for 2008 is the next logical step for my career,” Miller said. “I’ve known John for a while and after working with Rick in testing, it was an easy decision picking JDC as the team I would drive for next year. I can’t thank Mazda enough for this opportunity. Now I can’t wait to get back behind the wheel and begin working towards what I hope will be another championship-winning season.”

Photo of Joel Miller by JamesBearne.com