Team Bleekemolen, The Club Motorsport, Vict Motorsport and SpeedHouse Racing all announced new and/or returning drivers for the 2024 EuroNASCAR season.
Sunday, 7 April 2024, was a busy day for the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series teams with four of them finalizing deals for the drivers that will race in the 2024 season, which starts this weekend with the NASCAR GP Spain – Valencia NASCAR Fest at Circuit Ricardo Tormo.
Race Planet Team Bleekemolen, The Club Motorsport, Vict Motorsport and SpeedHouse Racing all announced new drivers to their roster. Collectively they would add Michael Bleekemolen, Reza Sardeha, Fabrizio Armetta, Riccardo Romagnoli, Dario Caso, Mario Ercoli and Eric Quintal to the grid in 2024.
Race Planet Team Bleekemolen was the first to hit the news tab, announcing that family patriarch Michael Bleekemolen and tech entrepreneur Reza Sardeha will be racing in EuroNASCAR 2 with the No. 72 and No. 11 teams respectively.
Michael Bleekemolen remains committed to fight for the overall victory in Legend Trophy, which was currently held by teammate Melvin de Groot. Already the oldest driver to have ever competed in EuroNASCAR, he is also going to be extending this record further.
“The series is very well organized and the cars are fantastic,” said Bleekemolen to euronascar.com. “My goal is to fight for podium finishes and win the Legend Trophy. My career highlight so far was winning the Legend Trophy class at Vallelunga in 2023.”
Sardeha is the founder of Anyone.com and the person behind Dan.com, which was acquired by GoDaddy for $71.4 million in 2022. He had driven go-karts from the age of 11 years old, but he only started to take racing seriously in late 2023.
Sardeha got himself hooked to EuroNASCAR after a Club Challenge run at Zolder. The experience there made him committed to enter full-time with Team Bleekemolen.
“I have set low expectations as I started my racing journey just 5 months ago and the last two test days were ‘suboptimal’ due to unforeseen challenges,” said the 34-year old, who will be racing the chassis that was previously used by the No. 44 team in 2022.
“But I’m thrilled and excited to take this bad boy on the track and start gaining experience this season to aim higher next one. This is just the beginning of the journey.”
Later that day, The Club Motorsport and Vict Motorsport had their rosters confirmed. The former retains the same line-up of Fabrizio Armetta and Riccardo Romagnoli while the latter promotes Mario Ercoli to a full-time seat alongside Dario Caso in the No. 8 Italicus Camaro.
The Club’s unchanged line-up states the team’s intention to continue on the success that they achieved in 2023. Armetta and Romagnoli scored a total of 13 top-10 finishes across both divisions, with the former also scoring his first podium finish in the season finale at Zolder.
One thing that has changed, however, is the livery of their cars. Instead of a yellow secondary color and red numbers, the team is set to use fluorescent yellow for both.
This presents a problem for Romagnoli’s No. 43 Camaro, as the white base color of his car made the number completely unreadable. A change is expected to be done before the season starts at Valencia.
On Vict’s side, Mario Ercoli will be replacing Paolo Valeri as the primary EN2 driver of the No. 8 team. The younger brother of reigning series champion Gianmarco Ercoli made a part-time debut in 2023 on both classes and was controversially involved in a skirmish that decided the ENPRO champion at Zolder.
Also revealed on Sunday is SpeedHouse Racing’s plans to field a third entry, the No. 64 Ford Mustang, for series veteran Eric Quintal. It’s unknown on how many races Quintal is scheduled to compete with in 2024.
Outside of that, SpeedHouse also showcased the No. 33 Sud-Ouest Remorques Ford at the Bordeaux Classic Day. The names listed also hint at the prospect of team owner Lucas Lasserre racing the car in EuroNASCAR PRO.
Still fresh from his surprise runner-up campaign in 2023, Lasserre is predicted to enter the Valencia round as the team’s second ENPRO driver.
Disclaimer: Credits for all photos are listed underneath each image.