How big are the chances that two race drivers from the United States, who don’t know each other, find out that they’ve attended the same school in 345 Chambers Street, New York City? They are pretty close to zero, but it happened to two NASCAR Whelen Euro Series drivers – Andre Castro and Julia Landauer – who met for the first time at an alumni event before the 2020 season. Afterwards they stayed in touch to talk about EuroNASCAR.
Both went to Stuyvesant High School, a public school for math and science in New York. Castro is 21 years and Landauer 28 years old, so they never were in the building as students at the same time but still it’s a big coincidence to have two drivers on the grid that became race drivers after visiting the same school in a huge city like New York.
It was not even easy to get accepted at Stuyvesant High School. “Many thousands of kids take a test to get in,” said Landauer. “About 800 get in every year and the school is known for people who do pretty crazy stuff. We had a chess grandmaster, an Olympic fencer and me as a race car driver. I graduated seven years before Andre but I met him at an alumni event where I met about 15 alumnis to talk about what I was up to.”
That’s when Castro showed up: “He introduced himself and at the end of last year I asked him on social media about the EuroNASCAR series. It’s cool to know that two kids, who visited the same High School in New York City, are now racing in EuroNASCAR in Europe. That was a lot of fun to realize and we helped each other throughout the whole process to figure out how to get over to Europe.”
Landauer and Castro met each other for the first time on a race track in Europe during the season opener at Autodromo di Vallelunga, Italy. The second race weekend of the 2020 NASCAR Whelen Euro Series season took place at Circuit Zolder. Both race in the EuroNASCAR 2 championship, Landauer for PK Carsport from Belgium and Castro for DF1 Racing from Austria.
Borth scored their first top-5 result in Zolder. Landauer sits ninth in the overall standings after four rounds, while Castro is 14th after missing one race in Belgium due to sickness. In four races, Landauer grabbed two race wins in the Lady Trophy and in the Rookie Trophy. Castro made a remarkable comeback in the fourth round at Circuit Zolder: After missing the Saturday’s session, the American had to start last and fought his way back up to fourth place in a thrilling EuroNASCAR 2 race.
