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NASCAR’s Euro Series Presents Affordable Development Path For Aspiring American Racers

This article is more than 2 years old.

Myatt Snider’s European sojourn wasn’t a calculated step in a young NASCAR driver’s development; it was the result of a knock-on effect that left the Charlotte native without a ride, one he thought was settled for the 2019 season.

Available at the 11th hour following a surprise dismissal, former series champion Johnny Sauter was plucked from the scrap heap by ThorSport Racing, reuniting with a team for whom he won 10 races between 2009-14. The move subsequently displaced Snider, leaving him without an obvious alternative.

“That kind of put us in a bind,” Snider said in an exclusive interview, pointing out that his funding for the year was tied to business-to-business partnerships with the companies of ThorSport owner Duke Thorson. “We really didn’t have that much sponsorship to work with because of that. We had to find something that we could do for not a lot of money.”

Full-time rides in the more obvious spots along NASCAR’s development pipeline — the Xfinity Series, Truck Series and ARCA — were occupied, and other domestic opportunities, mostly at the grassroots level, didn’t appeal to him.

“It’s not like I was going to go late model racing,” Snider said. “I needed to do something fresh, something new, something that would keep my relevance per se, but at the same time, provide me decent racing experience.”

The answer was the NASCAR Euro Series, an idea presented to him by series president Jérôme Galpin that February in Daytona. Now a 14-race stock car series competing predominately on road courses (with its 2021 season opening this weekend in Valencia, Spain), the unique challenge appealed to Snider, who was interested in improving his road racing acumen after a poor outing — his assessment — in the Truck Series road race the prior year at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park.

Following a talent discovery test in France, Snider agreed to drive for championship-contending team Racing Engineering in the Euro Series’ Elite 2 division which saw up to 30 entries per race. In 13 starts, he earned a pair of runner-up finishes at Italy’s Autodromo Di Franciacorta and Raceway Venray, on oval in the Netherlands.

In doing so and given the success that followed — he won his first Xfinity Series race last March in Homestead, Fla. — he might’ve also created an alternative for young racers with little sponsor backing. Americans willing to cultivate abroad, on the surface, can receive much bang for their buck.

A championship-caliber ride in the ARCA Series, a developmental series owned by NASCAR that competes at facilities like Daytona, Talladega and Charlotte, costs up to $100,000 per race. That same amount of money would fetch a title-contending ride for an entire year of Euro Series racing.

It’s a striking juxtaposition, balanced out by a few caveats. The Euro Series car is lighter than those competing in NASCAR’s most prominent series and has a three-link suspension compared to the truck-arm suspension that’s popular domestically. The races contest around 30 minutes, trophy dashes compared to the 200-mile events involving pit stops in ARCA or Trucks.

Still, given the accelerated learning curve for road racing at an affordable price point, it’s a wonder why more American drivers haven’t tried it.

Julia Landauer, a New York native who drove for Euro Series stalwart PK Carsport last year, recognized its value when deciding the next step of her career following a 2019 season competing in the Pro Series West, ARCA’s west-coast outpost. She also understood the trepidation in walking the unpaved path.

“I do think the nature of going over to Europe and the logistics involved with that and even the team dynamics, finding a team, having one that you will mesh with well culturally,” Landauer said, “I don’t know that every personality or every driver wants to do that.”

Perhaps future success from early adopters like Snider or Landauer could assist in the Euro Series becoming a more credible presence on NASCAR’s developmental pipeline. For most, as perceived by Landauer, it’s a series that’s out of sight, out of mind.

“I would assume because physically it’s so removed and there’s not a direct ladder system from winning the championship over there to then going over here,” Landauer said. “I don’t know if it seems like more of a sidestep and less of a direct feeder, which it might be — you learn so many skills, you just don’t get the oval experience.”

The learning component was echoed by Snider, who never saw his own car’s telemetry — advanced tracking data is not available to Truck Series drivers — until his time in the Euro Series. Voraciously consuming his throttle tracing and comparing himself to other, more experienced road racers on his team, he saw gaps in his driving technique — one of which was his braking style — that he quickly worked to correct.

When he substituted for a suspended Sauter later that season in a Truck Series race on a 1.25-mile oval track in Illinois, he noticed the strength he’d worked to create.

“I was one of the best trucks on the track and I beat everybody under braking,” Snider said. “I was just so used to stabbing the pedal and getting everything out of it. So, it was unique in how that showed up.”

He finished 10th in that race and, in recent Xfinity Series outings, produced elite passing numbers on tracks that require heavy brake use. His plus-12.56 percent surplus passing value in last season’s race in Martinsville, Va., ranked as a race-best mark. His plus-11.68 percent value last November in Phoenix fared as the second best among top contenders. He applied his efficient braking to a stadium road course last February in Daytona with his plus-11.69 percent SPV representing a top-five mark.

It’s a learned trait that might serve as his biggest advantage as NASCAR gears towards a new car and a new era in which road course racing will hold greater prominence.

The sanctioning body tipped its hand prior to the 2021 season, increasing the number of road races on the Cup Series schedule from three to seven, with high-exposure events taking place at Circuit of the Americas in Austin and the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Additionally, NASCAR is reportedly looking at the possibility of street course races within major markets.

All of these would represent races on the schedule in which a road racing acumen, something an American driver could polish on the cheap in NASCAR’s Euro Series, would translate.

If not an outright disruptor in NASCAR driver development, the Euro Series appears poised to become an affordable, alternative path for aspiring stock car racers.

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