Jarit Johnson Racing Enters Hungarian Driver Gyuri Makai in “Fall Brawl” Event at Hickory Motor Speedway

Jarit Johnson Racing announced their entry today into Hickory Motor Speedway’s annual Fall Brawl event. Regular team driver Jarit Johnson will step out of the driver’s seat to fulfill other obligations and has acquired Hungarian race car driver Gyuri Makai (pronounced yur-ree ma ky) to pilot the #7 Eton Finance/Sport Hirado.hu Chevrolet in his place. Makai will be making his first-ever start at Hickory Motor Speedway and only his 2nd ever late model stock car racing start. Most of his racing experience has been competing on road courses in touring cars at Hungaroring, a famous Formula1 track near Budapest, Hungary. “We don’t have any circle tracks in my country so my experience in racing is very different than stock car racing,” said Makai, who just landed in the United States on Wednesday. “I love stock car racing though and I have followed it by watching SPEED channel on satellite television.” Johnson had planned to drive in the race, but due to other scheduled obligations at Lowes Motor Speedway he would have missed practice and qualifying at Hickory. Makai was looking to race before the season ended and after contacting Jarit Johnson Racing the team thought it would be a unique opportunity. Johnson, who has 12-wins and several poles at the historic race track, will be at Hickory on Sunday to support the team and provide drivers coaching to Makai. Dan DiPaolo who is Johnson’s long time Crew Chief will lead the team for Makai. “I think it’s a pretty cool deal and I’m excited to see him race and coach him around Hickory,” said Johnson. “To come here to a foreign country and be willing to jump into one of the toughest races at one of the toughest tracks around showed me that Gyuri is dedicated to learning stock car racing. I know how it is to just need a break and have someone give you a chance.” Like Jarit Johnson at a very early age Gyuri Makai was obsessed with racing. He would watch car-racing on TV instead of cartoons. Young Gyuri kept asking his parents for a car and finally at age seven he got his wish and started racing go-karts. Makai comes from a humble hard working family background. Back home when not racing he’s a mechanic and works as a private driver for a corporate executive. His family also has a racing background. Makai’s Father and Mother both were rally racers. Makai made the journey to the United States this week, where he spent the last few days getting used to the time change and visiting major racing attractions like Lowes Motor Speedway and Hendrick Motor Sports. This weekend Makai and Johnson will be looking to just finish the race. “I just want to have a good clean race,” expressed Makai. “Of course every driver wants to win every race. But I know that just to finish this race will be good enough for now. I am still learning and will be looking to keep my car together and complete all 250 laps.” Johnson only expects Makai to do one thing. “I just want him to have fun and have a good experience. No one expects him to do anything beyond that,” said Johnson. “There will be a lot of the top late model drivers in the country in this race. So, he just needs to be patient and learn from them gaining as much track time as he can.” For More on Gyuri Makai visit: www.MakaiTeam.com Contact: Shawn Stewart (704) 658-7265 shawn@racingsolution.net