NASCAR Whelen Euro Series returns after the summer break this week for the NASCAR GP Czech Republic at Autodrom Most. The weekend started with a parade through the city center of Most on Thursday before the first day of on-track action began with the third round of the EuroNASCAR Club Challenge division. The battle in the regularity based challenge is fierce and ultimately it was reigning two-time champion Gordon Barnes that came out on top once again by besting the Speedhouse Racing duo of Florian Richard and Alain Mosqueron.
Barnes’ victory solidified his position as the leader of Club Challenge after he took the lead in Vallelunga in July. The driver of the #46 Marko Stipp Motorsport Chevrolet was beaten by Richard in the first session, but a spirited drive in the second session allowed him to score the overall victory. With Barnes choosing the faster reference time on both sessions, he also gained three bonus points towards his final points tally.
“It’s always amazing to leave a track with a nice trophy,” said Barnes. “The track is awesome with its technical sections and fast parts and we did an amazing job to score another win in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series Club Challenge. We collected big points and are now looking forward to our team’s home race in Germany at the Motorsport Arena Oschersleben.”
For the second round in a row, Richard beat his more experienced teammate Mosqueron. Despite choosing a slower reference time, the rookie topped a Club Challenge session for the first time in his career and the points advantage that he gained from it was enough to beat Mosqueron by two points in the duel for second place overall. Mosqueron, a two-time champion himself, still closed out the podium positions after a tiebreaker denied the Frenchman a top-3 finish at Vallelunga.
Another Club Challenge veteran came home in fourth: Federico Monti. The joint owner of Academy / Alex Caffi Motorsport finished with the same amount of points as Edouard Fatio and Arianna Casoli, but the Italian won the tiebreaker because he finished fourth in the second session and chose a faster reference time in the second session. Fatio finished fifth in both sessions and also opted for the faster time in one of the sessions. This gave the Swiss driver the upper hand from Casoli. Viktor Schiffer completed the standings in seventh after experiencing clutch problems in the first session.
With the Club Challenge results declared, the excitement at Autodrom Most will continue with the free practice sessions for both EuroNASCAR PRO and EuroNASCAR 2. All qualifying sessions and races from NASCAR GP Czech Republic will be broadcast live on EuroNASCAR’s YouTube channel, Motorsport.tv, and on many TV services around the world.
NWES PR
