Background

At the age of two, Joey was sitting in the stands of local dirt tracks where his father was racing stock cars. His father had already been racing for ten years.

It was ten years later that his father found out about karting, and he, Joey's two brothers and Joey (Joey was twelve years old) started racing nonstop. After a while his brothers found other interests and stopped racing. Joey's dad kept racing with Joey until it was too much for the both of them to run. After Joey's dad had won a few championships himself, he hung up the full-time racing helmet and just did it every once in a while.

They raced every race they could throughout the country in karts at the time, and won a lot of them too!

In 1996 and 1997, while racing karts nonstop, Joey was able to drive a sprint car and midget. He ran a few races, and decided not to pursue sprint car racing, because his heart was in formula cars. Joey has devoted all of his time and effort towards obtaining a ride in the direction of Formula One.

In 1998, he and his dad, with the help of some friends, ran Formula Mazda in the Start Mazda Series. They won one race and finished fourth in the championship. In 1999, he was fortunate to find a ride with the number-one team in Formula Mazda at the time, Kent Stacy's Stacy Suspension Systems (S3) team. Joey went on to win eight races, with eight poles and two different championships.

At the end of 1999, Joey broke his elbow very badly in a karting accident. It took three months recovery before he could drive again, in which he lost all chances of finding a full-time ride for the 2000 season. He did, though, run in the Team USA scholarship in England , which he won. At the end of 2000, Joey received a phone call from the DSTP Toyota Atlantic team owned by Dede Rogers, asking for his presence at a six-man shoot-out the team was having at Buttonwillow Raceway Park in California . He went to the test, and they picked him to drive for their Toyota Atlantic team in 2001, where they had two wins, six podium finishes, and a pole position, on their way to taking third in the championship (only two points out of second), and the Rookie-of-the-Year title.

The 2002 season got off to a great start with DSTP. He earned a podium finish and a pole position after the first two races, but in testing for the third race, he had a very big testing accident on the Milwaukee Mile. He broke three vertebras, his left knee, tailbone and rib. He missed six races while recovering. In the first three races back, he had run top-five in all events. In the past two years he had also driven and tested for Tom Milner's, PTG BMW Motorsports team doing testing one race.

In 2003, Joey drove for DSTP yet again starting the season right. At the first race of the season, Joey and DSTP took the provisional pole at Monterrey , Mexico . Joey led the first few laps, until a gearbox failure terminated the chance to win. Joey was on the podium in Portland . It was obvious the terrible luck Joey had this season, as he was awarded the Jovy Marscelo Sportsmanship Award. He took seventh place in the championship. Joey was very fortunate to drive for Dede Rogers and her DSTP team. Dede is a very generous, outspoken, fun loving person is the talk of the paddock.

For 2004, Joey ran for PTG Racing in the Rolex Grand-American Road Racing Series, GT class in their BMW M3. A different form of racing entirely, Joey had a blast driving the BMW M3s prepared by Tom Milners PTG Team and enjoyed the challenges of learning how to drive a completely different style of car in a completely different type of racing. He was teammates with the infamous Boris Said and Bill Auberlen. Justin Marks and Joey teamed up in the beginning of the year, and the driver line ups changed a bit, as Joey and Boris were teammates the last few races. He and Boris took first place at The Glen.

For 2005, Joey was signed by BMW North America to continue driving the BMW Team PTG BMW M3 GT's in the Rolex Grand-Am series. 2005 would prove to be one of Joey's most successful seasons since running Star Formula Mazda with Kent Stacy (S3) in 1999. With a team leading 8 podiums and 4 wins, Joey went on to finish the Championship in 4 th Place without going to the last race in Mexico City . Joey had many different teammates and drove multiple team cars to victory. He drove the #21, #22, and #16 cars to victory lane. He shared the podium with the famous BMW and GT car ace Bill Auberlen, one of his best friends and teammates Justin Marks , Ian James and the veteran of the group, Chris Gleason.

In 2006, Joey has again been signed by BMW NA to drive their BMW M3 GTR machine. There will be a change this year, as BMW and PTG will be making the move to the American Le Mans Series (ALMS). PTG and their world-class team of drivers and crew will look to keep up there winning ways in the GT2 class of ALMS.

Family History

Joey's parents were born and raised in Sacramento, California. His entire family-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and brothers, all live within a 40-mile radius of Sacramento. His dad has done almost everything you can do in life. He likes doing his own thing. At 16 years old he owned his own restaurants while still going to high school. When he finished high school he had three restaurants. Apparently, that got old after a while, so he sold the restaurants and started a moving company, where he met Joey's mom (moving her furniture). His parents married shortly after. The moving company turned into a trucking company for a while until he had enough of that too. His next venture began about the time Joey was born. His dad started a towing service. Most of Joey's early memories are standing in the middle seat of a tow truck with his mom and dad towing cars. When that got too dangerous, his dad opened a used tire store and used car lot combination. The tire store lasted the longest of companies his dad owned. Joey grew up helping customers, changing tires and selling used cars. From around six years old until about 17 years old, he spent summers, holidays and all other free time at the tire shop.

When business was good at the tire shop, his dad started a house development company on the side. All throughout this time, his dad had been racing stock cars at the local dirt tracks on the weekends. Stock cars were not cheap, though, and they were looking for something else to do. Also during this time Joey was playing baseball all over the country. He played baseball for six years, and made all-stars each year.

In 1991, someone came into the tire shop and told Joey's dad that they should check out these go-karts. That weekend the Hand family went and watched them at a nearby track. Joey thought they were awesome, but his dad said that they were not what he had expected. That Monday while out picking up tires in the truck Joey, as usual, fell asleep. When the van stopped, he woke up and they were sitting in front of a go-kart shop. They bought three karts and starting racing the next weekend. His dad and him have not stopped racing since. His dad ran Emmick Racing Karts for years. Emmick Enterprise has sponsored Joey for ten years in karts. He has a lot of fun working with all the karters.

As far as Joey's mom is concerned, after high school she went to work for the California Highway Patrol, and has worked there ever since. Everyone tells Joey how he has the coolest, most supportive mom ever, and he agrees. Without her he would not be anywhere. She supported their whole family when his dad closed all his businesses to focus on Joey's racing in 1997.

Joey grew up with two brothers-Philip his older brother of 29, and Jeff his younger brother of 21. He does not see his older brother much; he is married with a nine-year-old daughter. His younger brother has been Joey's number-one mechanic and 'bouncer' for years. He is much bigger than Joey, as he stands six-foot three inches in height, and weighing in at 185 pounds. He is currently a partner in the new family business, Jiffy Pool Service. Jeff still does mechanical work for certain karters when he has the chance. They pay him a lot better than Joey ever could!