NASCARLandauer earns first career EuroNASCAR Podium at Valencia

Landauer earns first career EuroNASCAR Podium at Valencia

By Seth Eggert, Staff Writer

Fresh off a fifth-place finish in Round 8 of EuroNASCAR 2, Julia Landauer earned her first career podium in the first round of the season finale at Circuit Ricardo Tormo.

While several of her competitors found trouble on the opening laps, the driver of the No. 11 PK Carsport Chevrolet Camaro quietly avoided the incidents. Afterwards, Landauer found herself behind Vladimiros Tziortzis and Francesco Garisto.

Nwes stephane azemard
Julia Landauer on track at Circuit Ricardo Tormo, Photo by NASCAR Whelen Euro Series / Stephane Azemard.

The wounded No. 48 DF1 Racing Chevrolet Camaro held up both Landauer and Tziortzis. A drive-through penalty for avoidable contact brought Garisto down pit road with five laps to go.

With Garisto relinquishing his podium position, Landauer was left to battle Tziortzis for second. Race leader and eventual winner Tobias Dauenhauer was 11 seconds ahead. As Landauer was careful not to exceed track limits, Tziortzis slipped away. When the checkered flag waved, the New York, N.Y. native was in third, two seconds ahead of Simon Pilate.

“Started 10th and finally got that first overall podium,” explained Landauer on Twitter. “So lucky to be part of PK Carsport.”

The podium finish is Landauer’s third top-five and sixth top-10 finish in the second division of the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series. She is the only American competing full-time in the series in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Andre Castro, also a New York, N.Y. native had planned on competing full-time as well.

Landauer’s podium finish is the first for a woman in EuroNASCAR since Carole Perrin in the Pro Division at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in 2012. In addition to earning a podium finish overall, Landauer won the Lady Trophy classification.

Nwes klemen sofric 00001
Julia Landauer celebrates her first career podium in EuroNASCAR competition, Photo by NASCAR Whelen Euro Series / Klemen Sofric.

The 2020 EuroNASCAR season marks the first time since 2017 in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West (now ARCA Menards Series West) that Landauer has competed full-time. In two full-time K&N Pro Series seasons, she earned eight top-five and 20 top-10 finishes. In 2018 and 2019, Landauer competed part-time in the NASCAR Pinty’s Series where she scored one top-10.

The rookie competitor in EuroNASCAR competition has just one more race this season. The second half of the 2020 season finale weekend, also at the Valencia, Spain track is the morning of Sunday, December 6.

Photo by NASCAR Whelen Euro Series / Klemen Sofric

Seth Eggert
Seth Eggert
Growing up in Northern New Jersey, Seth grew up in a family of NASCAR fans. He was always determined to have a career in the industry. While in college, Seth bought a subscription to iRacing. As an avid iRacer, Seth took an opportunity to start a journalism career at iRacingNews covering the iRacing.com IndyCar Open Oval Series. He spent four years at iRacingNews before moving towards coverage of motorsports in the real world. In 2016, Seth joined Tribute Racing, which then became Motorsports Tribune as a Staff Writer. That same year, he graduated from Mitchell Community College with an Associate’s Degree in History. He joined the Kickin’ the Tires team as a Staff Writer and eSports Editor in late 2019. When he is not writing or covering NASCAR or iRacing, Seth works at Mitchell Community College as an Administrator in their Mooresville campus tutoring center. He is also qualified to tutor up to 38 different classes ranging from Communications to History to Math to various electives.
MORE STORIES BY THIS AUTHOR

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!

Other Stories