Drama filled NASCAR GP UK launches Michael Bleekemolen to the top of the Legend Trophy - Speedway Digest

The battle for the 2024 NASCAR Whelen Euro Series Legend Trophy has already produced some dramatic stories with top contenders involved in incidents and close battles in all six races held so far. Consistency is the name of the game in EuroNASCAR 2, and that’s why 74-year-old Michael Bleekemolen is at the top of the 40-and-over class, despite having flown under the radar in the races so far. One of the masterminds behind Team Bleekemolen, the veteran is eighth in the overall standings, just 53 points behind EuroNASCAR 2 points leader Martin Doubek.

Bleekemolen has had three good race weekends so far as the Dutchman started the season with 13th and 15th place finishes in the season opener at Valencia. In Italy, the 74-year-old finished 15th on Saturday and scored his first top-10 finish of the season with tenth on Sunday. It wasn’t enough for a class win so far, but Bleekemolen scored plenty of important points that put him at the top of the standings at Brands Hatch. Twelfth on Saturday, Bleekemolen was third on the class podium behind Melvin de Groot and Kenko Miura.

A fantastic race on Sunday catapulted him to eighth in the overall standings. The former Formula 1 driver not only finished seventh overall in a dramatic race, but also scored four bonus points for the most positions gained in the race. This gave him 34 points in just one race – the equivalent of third place finish without the bonus points. In the Legend Trophy he has a 15-point lead over his teammate and reigning Trophy champion de Groot, who has had an up-and-down season so far.

De Groot started with three disastrous races, but turned things around with a podium and Legend Trophy win in Sunday’s race in Vallelunga. In the UK, the Dutch giant finished second in the Legend classification behind Claudio Cappelli with a seventh place on Saturday. He then took his second Trophy win of the season in sixth place overall on Sunday. The Team Bleekemolen pilot made good progress at Brands Hatch and will now battle with Bleekemolen for the lead at Raceway Venray – the only oval on the schedule – where de Groot has raced in another class in the past.

Roberto Benedetti, who won one Legend Trophy race at Vallelunga, is third in the standings but the CAAL Racing driver crashed at Brands Hatch on Sunday. He suffered a fractured wrist and will miss the next event as he needs to rest to recover from the injury. His team-mate Sven van Laere is fourth just ahead of Cappelli, who has won the Legend Trophy three times so far. The Italian was involved in incidents at Vallelunga and Brands Hatch and lacked the consistency to keep up with Bleekemolen at the top of the championship.

Arianna Casoli is not only sixth in the Legend Trophy standings, but is also the leader in the Lady Trophy. The Italian Speedhouse star sits ahead of Miura and Giovanni Faraonio, who stormed onto the Legend Trophy podium in his first EuroNASCAR appearance. NWES returnee Alain Grand, Eric Quintal and three-time Club Challenge champion Gordon Barnes round out the Legend Trophy standings after six of nine races of the 2024 NASCAR Whelen Euro Series regular season. Next up is the NASCAR Oval GP on June 29-30. Qualifying and all races will be broadcast live on EuroNASCAR’s YouTube channel and on several television networks around the world.

NWES PR