Euro Racecar Nascar Touring Series What a grid !! 06.04.2012: The 2012 EURO-RACECAR NASCAR Touring Series has started today in Gers (France). Drivers were

The 2012 EURO-RACECAR NASCAR Touring Series has started today in Gers (France). Drivers were in a hurry to enter on the track for the first official private practice of the Nogaro 200. For this first race of the NASCAR Era, the drivers lineup in very impressive with European drivers coming from top International championships. The pole position time of 2011 was already beaten by nearly 1 second.


The ELITE Championship becomes more and more exciting with the entry of Javier Villa. Young 25-year-old Spanish driver, trained in open-wheel, he grew up in GP2 Series, the access series to Formula 1, where he tasted victory several times. Used to worldwide series, he raced in 2011 in WTCC, the World Championship of Tourism Cars, with BMW.


In 2012, the perspective to win a race in the USA appealed him and so he chose the EURO-RACECAR NASCAR Touring Series to continue his career. He will be in the TFT’s Chevrolet Camaro #64.


Used to play in the front, Javier Villa marked the session reaching the best lap in 1’35’’413 in the first free practice organized on the circuit Paul Armagnac on Friday morning. He quickly tamed his new racing monster, a World Touring RACECAR, to turn upside down the expected results. First of all the ones of Romain Thievin (Dodge Challenger #99 – Still Racing), the 2011 first runner-up, who finished a few behind in a gap of 0”120.


Thievin’s goal is clear: to win the 2012 championship and the race in the USA. Of course, he will be challenged by Ander Vilarino (Chevrolet Camaro #2 – TFT), the 2011 second runner-up. In Friday afternoon practice, he reach the best lap in 1’34”965 (0”392 faster than Thievin) when in the morning he reached the top 3.


But we can’t consider them as the only favorites with such a high level grid. Among the entrants of this first round of this brand new European NASCAR Touring Series, we can also find Willy Boucenna (Ford Mustang #17 – Pole position 81), the 2009 first ever Champion, Romain Fournillier (Dodge Charger #11 – Over Drive), 2011 Open Champion or Antoine Lioen (Chevrolet Camaro #6 – Rapido Racing), winner of the 2011 Challlenger Trophy.


And not to forget the highly awarded drivers, such as the French Gregory Guilvert (Chevrolet Camaro #14), former test driver for the Peugeot 908, Romain Iannetta (Dodge Challenger #25) who finished 4th in 2011, Dimitri Enjalbert (Dodge Charger #33) or the rookie Anthony Garbarino (Ford Mustang #5 – Rapido Racing) who signed good times finishing 4th of the last practices.


On the English side, Harry Vaulkhard (Ford Mustang #7 – Events Motorsports), former WTCC driver – such as Villa -, Nigel Greensall (Dodge Challenger #48 – TFT), multiple time winner in open-wheels championships. And also, the Swedish Freddy Nordström (Dodge Charger #44 – Orhès Compétition), former winner of the Mini Challenge UK.


 Last, but certainly not the least, the women’s touch is brought by Carole Perrin (Chevrolet Camaro #42 – Autosport 42) who will try to repeat his performance of the 2011 Mortorland Aragon’s round where she won.


This 25-car highly-ranked grid will begin on Saturday with the difficult exercise of qualification at 11:00am for Elite drivers and 3:15pm for the Open ones. Every driver will commemorate Christian Delpech all weekend long. He was the owner of the team Pole Position 81 which is involved in the championship from its very beginning, and he died on Tuesday the 3th of April night.


 The whole EURO-RACECAR NASCAR Touring Series family was shattered by the sudden death of this 58 year-old true passionate. The Series will observe a minute’s silence on Sunday the 8th of April at 10:15am between the Elite Sprint race and the Clio Cup race in which Christian was involved for years.



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