A dream come true

Miguel Gomes, a computer engineer by profession, showed a passion for computers at a very young age. Along with computers, he discovered how passionate he was about cars and sports cars, in particular the American NASCAR Championship.

The amateur karting since the age of 15 and the online simulator cars competition at 22 increased this passion. Gomes showed to be a flashy racer with numerous victories in both virtual world and reality and the journey to become a real pilot begins.

From online sim-racing to reality

2007 was the year! Gomes meets a French pilot at an online racing league, Thierry Haenel. Haenel was racing at the British stock cars championship at the time named ASCAR, taking place on the oval in Rockingham, England. This competition brought the ideals of American NASCAR to Europe. After several disputes on virtual tracks, Haenel encouraged Miguel Gomes to take the tests on real cars.

With no experience in the field, Gomes becomes part of a group of 7 experienced candidates to the championship, in Rockingham, the fastest track in Europe. Surprisingly, he´s one of the 3 selected drivers for the competition and the fastest in the final test at the wheel of a powerful stock car´s 450 horsepower with an average speed above 230 km/h (140 mph).

Due to the need of a racing license to be able to run abroad, Gomes participated in several races in Portugal in order to get certified. In 2008, he finally sees his dream coming alive! He enters the British stock cars Championship for the first time, reaching the podium in his first race in Brands Hatch!

With no race funding to support his participation in the Championship, 2009 was the year where Gomes was back on track. This is the year where the European Late Model Series (ELMS) is designed, the first championship ever bringing an American NASCAR style.

In a difficult economic environment, it is the company where Gomes works at, the Portuguese multinational Altitude Software, that decides to partially finance his participation in the championship, becoming Gomes´s first sponsor.

The Championship, a result from the merger of the former Belgian League CAMSO V8 and the English ASCAR, confronts two different cars and tries to make them more equal according to specific rules. The ASCAR, the car Gomes had driven in the British Championship and drove again in the 2009 season of the ELMS, proved to be less competitive than the CAMSO still in a process of adapting from 1,5 mile oval racing to the short oval racing. Still, the Portuguese driver continued to show his competitiveness in the three attended meetings, trying to counter the supremacy of the CAMSO. In his final race, he turns out to be the best ASCAR and manages to get a top-10.

• 2007 - ASCAR - Rookie Tests -With only sim-racing (computer racing simulators) and amateur karting experience joins a group of 7 experienced drivers to take the Rookie Tests for the SCSA V8 Trophy. Amazingly he is the fastest driver in the tests with an average speed of 230km/h (140 mph) in his final test at Rockingham Motor Speedway and is one of the 3 drivers that get permission to enter the series.
• 2007 - Does in Portugal the necessary racing to enable him to get an international racing license to participate in the SCSA V8 Trophy in 2008.
• 2008 - ASCAR - Estreia em Brands Hatch - Does one V8 Trophy race weekend in Brands Hatch. With only 15 minutes of practice to get used to the car and track, manages to get a podium position.
• 2009 - European Late Model Series - Attended 3 meetings in the new series and gets an manages to be the best ASCAR and to get a top-10 in the last race.

The Portuguese driver is seen as a phenomenon, a race car driver with great talent and passion for stock-cars.