Today saw the opening of the fifth race weekend in the 2019 NASCAR Whelen Euro Series at the half-mile (0.88km) Raceway Venray oval track in Holland. In a change to the normal EuroNASCAR programme, today featured the Elite 2 cars and drivers with an hour-long Free Practice followed by a thirty-minute Qualifying session prior to the seventy-lap race. Myatt Snider was Racing Engineering’s only driver in Elite 2 this weekend and the young American used his experience of oval racing in America to set the fastest time of 19.971 seconds in the wet/dry Free Practice session. Qualifying saw the sun shining and Myatt was the first car on track as a result of his earlier fastest time and the young American set a lap of 20.080 in his opening four-lap run to be second fastest and his second saw an improvement to 19.791 to go top of the timing sheets. On his final run the Racing Engineering car was unable to improve leaving him in third position on the grid for the afternoon race.

The Elite 2 field was smaller than usual with just fifteen cars starting but on such a short track the seventy lap race would be full of excitement and incident. The track was a little damp from earlier rain and the cars were given extra warm-up laps to get used to the conditions. Myatt made a good start from third on the rolling grid but was blocked a little going into the first corner dropping to fourth and he initially had to take a lower line into the corners rather than the faster high line. The Racing Engineering car then closed on Sorensen in third and on lap twelve he was ahead but two laps later he went a little too high and lost three places falling to sixth. Myatt quickly regained a place when he passed Castro and almost immediately, he was ahead of Doubek and two laps later he passed Sorensen to regain third. His next target was Maessen in second and on lap thirty-two he drafted past his rival with race leader Ghirelli some seven seconds ahead. Myatt was now flying and with twenty-five laps remaining the gap was down to 4.8 seconds, and three laps later it was just 2.5 seconds. The young American was having to fight his way through lapped cars but with eleven laps remaining it was just 0.6 seconds and two laps later he was right on the rear bumper of his rival. With just two laps to go Myatt was trying everything to pass Ghirelli but although he pulled level several times he just wasn’t able to find a way past so he had to settle for an excellent second at the finish

Team Comments:

Ines Koschutnig - Chief Executive Officer: "Amazing race! We were all really excited to watch Myatt’s abilities on an oval and how he worked his way through the traffic. He was clearly the fastest car on track, and I am sure that with only a couple of laps more he would have won. This was a really good start to the weekend and I am really proud of the entire Racing Engineering team in their first ever race on an oval. Now we concentrate on tomorrow where we will have our Elite 1 cars racing."

Myatt Snider: "It was quite a hectic race. The leader did not get as good a start as I thought he would, so second place managed to get the lead and I was stuck in a beehive. But I made my way through the mess and chased down the leader after he had an 8 second lead. I tried to contend for the win, but ultimately got cut off and finished second. Really proud of Racing Engineering for bringing me a fantastic Ford Performance Mustang. Can’t wait for Hockenheim."