Julia Landauer Looking For First Win with New Team In NASCAR K&N Pro Series West

NASCAR selected Julia among hundreds of young drivers to participate in their Next mentoring program

Julia was selected to participate in the NASCAR Next mentoring program for young drivers

Most race drivers as excited about the opportunities that moving to a new team presents. For Julia Landauer, her team is so confident in her abilities that they’re predicting some victories in the 2017 NASCAR K&N Pro Series West in her sophomore season.

In 2016, driving for Bill McAnally Racing, Landauer earned two top-three finishes, seven top-five finishes, and 13 top-10 finishes to grab fourth in the final series standings, the highest finish for a female in the 62-year history of the series. Landauer also earned the 2016 Driver Achievement award and the Top Breakthrough Driver honor. She gave high marks to McAnally “I learned a lot from Bill, it’s a great team.”

For 2017, Landauer will be driving for Bob Bruncati and the Sunrise Ford Racing Team in the K&N Pro Series West. Bruncati expressed his confidence in his new driver, “I am excited that Julia chose my team to advance her racing career. I know together we will win some races in 2017."

Four-time K&N West champion crew chief Bill Sedgwick will serve as Landauer's crew chief for 2017. Looking ahead to the season, Sedgwick said, "I think it's great, I'm looking forward to it. Based on how she raced last year I think we're going to do good. We have good cars and it'll be something different [working with Julia]. It'll be fun!"

Her 2016 performance earned Landauer an invitation to participate in the prestigious NASCAR Next program, where 11 promising young drivers receive on-track and off-track mentoring from NASCAR to assist them in moving up the ladder.

Both Julia and the Sunrise Ford team feel strongly they can win some races this year

Julia is ready to buckle in for the start of the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West on March 18

In 2015, Landauer won the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Limited Late Model Division championship at Motor Mile Speedway, in Radford, Virginia, the first female to win a title in the track’s history. Prior to that she competed in Formula BMW, some Midget races, Legends races, and just about anything where she could get some seat time. Before that, she won her category in the Skip Barber Racing Series, and cut her teeth in karting at the age of 10.

Landauer’s racing background is not dissimilar to many successful young drivers. What differentiates Landauer is her education. She graduated from the prestigious Stuyvesant High School, a public school in New York City that accepts only about two percent of all applicants. The curriculum at Stuyvesant is focused on the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) subjects, and graduates include four Nobel laureates and others who’ve achieved a high level of success in literature, politics, and the sciences.

After high school, Landauer moved west to attend Stanford University, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Landauer continued her studies of STEM education and how to bring more young women into technical career fields, which she plans to incorporate as part of her message. Landauer also supplemented her college education with an internship at Chip Ganassi Racing. She graduated from Stanford in 2014, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Science, Technology, and Society.

Karting was a family activity while Julie was growing up, traveling two hours to a track to compete

Julia, age 10, karting with her family. She's the only one to pursue racing professionally

During breaks in the academic year Landauer managed to slip in a few races around the Sacramento area, but she also carved out some time to participate in the reality television show Survivor: Cameroon in 2013, where she was the seventh cast member voted off the island. “It was pretty much a big bummer, but that’s OK. It was a great experience and one that I would go back and do again in a heartbeat,” she told the Stanford newspaper.

But now it’s all racing, all the time. Landauer summed up her feelings going into a new season with a new team: “I’m really excited to take all I learned in 2016 and make a run for the championship in 2017 with Bob Bruncati and the Sunrise Team,” Landauer said. “It was a privilege to race for Bill McAnally Racing last year and I’m grateful to get another opportunity to compete for a championship-winning team again in 2017.”

The 2017 NASCAR K&N Pro Series West begins on Saturday, March 18 at Arizona's Tucson Speedway and the 14-race schedule culminates on Saturday, Nov. 4 at Kern County Speedway in Bakersfield, California. The TV broadcast schedule on NBCSN will be announced at a later date.

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