Miguel Paludo (born July 26, 1983) is a Brazilian professional

racing driver Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...

who competes full-time in the Porsche GT3 Carrera Cup Series. Paludo formerly competed in NASCAR full-time in the

Camping World Truck Series The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is a pickup truck racing series owned and operated by the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, and is the only series in NASCAR to race production pickup truck based stock cars. The series is one of th ...

, driving for

Red Horse Racing Red Horse Racing was an American professional stock car racing team that last competed in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. The team was based in Mooresville, North Carolina. It was co-owned by former Mobil 1 marketing executive Tom DeLoach a ...

and

Turner Scott Motorsports Turner Scott Motorsports (TSM), formerly Turner Motorsports was an American professional stock car racing team that last competed in the NASCAR Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, Sprint Cup Series, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Nationwide Series, ...

. He has won four championships in the Porsche GT3 Cup Series, with three (2008, 2009, and 2020) in the Carrera Cup and the other (2017) in the Endurance Series.

Racing career

Early career

Paludo began racing

go kart A go-kart, also written as go-cart (often referred to as simply a kart), is a type of sports car, close wheeled car, open-wheel car or quadracycle. Go-karts come in all shapes and forms, from non-motorised models to high-performance racing ...

s at the age of 14, and in 2004, moved up to

touring car racing Touring car racing is a motorsport road racing competition with heavily modified road-going cars. It has both similarities to and significant differences from stock car racing, which is popular in the United States. While the cars do not mov ...

in a regional Brazilian series, competing for his family-owned team with his brother Daniel. He competed for several years in regional and national series in Brazil, most successfully in the

Porsche GT3 Cup Brasil The Porsche Carrera Cup Brasil and Porsche Sprint Challenge Brasil are the first ever one-make championships of Porsche in the continent of South America. It was first contested in 2005 and follows the same formula basis used in the Porsche Supe ...

, where he won back-to-back series championships in 2008 and 2009.

2010–2013 and 2021-present: NASCAR

Miguel Paludo Turner Motorsports Chevrolet Rockingham 2012

Paludo began his NASCAR career in 2010, competing in the

K&N Pro Series East The ARCA Menards Series East (formerly Busch East Series, Busch North Series, Camping World East Series, and NASCAR K&N Pro Series East) is a regional stock car racing series owned and operated by the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) and ...

in a car fielded by

Hattori Racing Enterprises Hattori Racing Enterprises (HRE) is a Japanese-American professional stock car racing team that currently competes in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Owned by former NASCAR and open-wheel driver Shigeaki Hattori they compete with the No. 1 ...

. He finished fifteenth in the series standings that year, with a best finish of fourth. He also made his debut in the

, competing for

Germain Racing Germain Racing was an American professional stock car racing team that last competed in the NASCAR Cup Series. It was owned by Bob Germain, whose family owns many car dealerships across the United States as Germain Motor Company. The team last fie ...

and

in four races. He finished ninth in his first race in the series, at

Bristol Motor Speedway Bristol Motor Speedway, formerly known as Bristol International Raceway and Bristol Raceway, is a NASCAR short track venue located in Bristol, Tennessee. Constructed in 1960, it held its first NASCAR race on July 30, 1961. Bristol is among the m ...

, widely regarded as a difficult track for rookie drivers. In 2011, he ran full-time in the Camping World Truck Series for

, with a best finish of third; he ended the season finishing seventeenth in the points standings and fourth in the series' Rookie-of-the-Year competition. Miguel Paludo 32 2012 Road America Sargento 200

Miguel Paludo 32 2012 Road America Sargento 200

Following the end of the 2011 season, Paludo left Red Horse Racing to drive for

in the No. 32 truck with teammates

James Buescher James H. Buescher (born March 26, 1990) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He is the 2012 Truck Series champion. After parting ways with NTS Motorsports in 2015, Buescher became a real estate agent. He owns and operates his ow ...

and

Nelson Piquet Jr. Nelson Angelo Tamsma Piquet Souto Maior (born July 25, 1985), also known as Nelson Piquet Junior or Nelsinho Piquet, is a Brazilian stock car racing driver and former Formula One and Formula E driver where he was champion in the 2014–15 seaso ...

, another Brazilian driver. Paludo started the season with a pole in the season-opener at

Daytona International Speedway Daytona International Speedway is a race track in Daytona Beach, Florida, United States. Since opening in 1959, it has been the home of the Daytona 500, the most prestigious race in NASCAR as well as its season opening event. In addition to NASC ...

, where he was the first Brazilian to win a pole in one of NASCAR's top-three series, and alongside Piquet Jr., comprised the first all-Brazilian front row in the history of NASCAR. Paludo's best finish of the season (fifth) came in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and he ultimately finished 10th in the NCWTS driver point standings, his best points position to date. Additionally, Paludo ran two

NASCAR Nationwide Series The NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) is a stock car racing series organized by NASCAR. It is promoted as NASCAR's second-tier circuit to the organization's top level Cup Series. NXS events are frequently held as a support race on the day prior to a ...

races in 2012, competing at

Road America Road America is a motorsport road course located near Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, United States on Wisconsin Highway 67. It has hosted races since the 1950s and currently hosts races in the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series, WeatherTech SportsCar Ch ...

and

Watkins Glen International Watkins Glen International, nicknamed "The Glen", is an automobile race track located in the town of Dix just southwest of the village of Watkins Glen, New York, at the southern tip of Seneca Lake. It was long known around the world as the hom ...

, in the latter of which he earned his best NNS finish of 13th. In 2013, Paludo returned to the No. 32 Chevrolet Silverado with Turner Scott Motorsports for another complete NCWTS season. At Talladega Superspeedway in October, Paludo was involved in a spectacular last-lap accident, his truck being flipped in the

trioval A tri-oval is a shape which derives its name from the two other shapes it most resembles, a triangle and an oval. Rather than meeting at sharp, definable angles as the sides of a triangle do, in a tri-oval these angles are instead rounded into sm ...

. Following the 2013 season, Paludo was released by Turner Scott Motorsports due to a lack of sponsorship. He was unable to find another ride in NASCAR for 2014. In

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...

, Paludo would return to NASCAR and the

Xfinity Series The NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) is a stock car racing series organized by NASCAR. It is promoted as NASCAR's second-tier circuit to the organization's top level Cup Series. NXS events are frequently held as a support race on the day prior to a ...

(previously Nationwide) and would drive the No. 8

JR Motorsports JR Motorsports (pronounced "Junior Motorsports") is an American professional stock car racing team that currently competes in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series, CARS Tour, and occasionally in the NASCAR Advance Auto Pa ...

in three road course races (the Daytona Road Course,

Circuit of the Americas Circuit of the Americas (COTA) is a Grade 1 FIA-specification motor racing track and facilities located within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Austin, Texas, in the United States. The facility is home to the Formula One United States G ...

and

Mid-Ohio Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course is a road course auto racing facility located in Troy Township, Morrow County, Ohio, United States, just outside the village of Lexington. Mid-Ohio has also colloquially become a term for the entire north-central regio ...

) during the first half of the season, replacing

Josh Berry Joshua W. Berry (born October 22, 1990) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 8 Chevrolet Camaro for JR Motorsports. Berry has also competed for JRM in late model ...

, the car's driver for the first half of the season. JRM had announced months earlier that

Sam Mayer Sam A. Mayer (born June 26, 2003) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 1 Chevrolet Camaro for JR Motorsports, a team in which he is also a development driver for ...

would be driving the No. 8 car during the second half of the season, which was why Paludo was not given the car for all seven road course races on the schedule. The deal came about through BRANDT, Paludo's sponsor in Brazil, which was also the primary sponsor of JRM's No. 7 car of

Justin Allgaier Justin M. Allgaier (born June 6, 1986) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 7 Chevrolet Camaro for JR Motorsports. He is the 2008 ARCA Re/Max Series champion and ...

. Allgaier and Paludo were teammates at Turner Scott Motorsports from 2011 to 2013, and BRANDT was Allgaier's primary sponsor there as well, and in addition to that, they sponsored Paludo in one Truck race. Paludo would return to

for the same 3 events in 2022.

2014–present: Sports car racing

After Paludo ended up not running any NASCAR races during the 2014 season, he moved back to Brazil in 2015 and began racing in the Porsche GT3 Cup Series again. He would also compete in and win one championship in both the Porsche Endurance Series as well as the Carrera Cup, giving him a total of four titles in the series across all of its divisions.

Personal life

Born in

Nova Prata Nova Prata is a municipality in the mountainous Serra Gaúcha region of Rio Grande do Sul, in southern Brazil. It is in the Guapore micro-region of the Nordeste Rio-Grandense meso-region of the state. Geography The city of Nova Prata is situate ...

in the state of

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a state in the southern region of Brazil. It is the fifth-most-populous state and the ninth largest by area. Located in the southernmost part of the country, Rio Grande do Sul is border ...

in southern Brazil, Paludo currently resides in

Mooresville, North Carolina Mooresville is a large town located in the southwestern section of Iredell County, North Carolina, United States, and is a part of the fast-growing Charlotte metropolitan area. The population was 50,193 at the 2020 United States Census making i ...

. He is married, and has one son, Oliver, with his wife Patricia.

Diabetes advocacy

Paludo was diagnosed with

type 1 diabetes Type 1 diabetes (T1D), formerly known as juvenile diabetes, is an autoimmune disease that originates when cells that make insulin (beta cells) are destroyed by the immune system. Insulin is a hormone required for the cells to use blood sugar f ...

in 2004 at the age of 21 and has since become an advocate of

diabetes Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ...

awareness and care. In addition to a long-standing relationship with the

American Diabetes Association The American Diabetes Association (ADA) is a United States-based nonprofit that seeks to educate the public about diabetes and to help those affected by it through funding research to manage, cure and prevent diabetes (including type 1 diabetes, ...

, Paludo announced in 2012 that he would become the next Blue Circle Champion for the

International Diabetes Federation The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) is an umbrella organization of over 230 national diabetes associations in more than 160 countries and territories. The Federation has been leading the global diabetes community since 1950. It is headqu ...

, a worldwide alliance of some 200 diabetes associations in more than 160 countries. Paludo is the first representative of the organization from

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

. Paludo and his wife Patricia also learned in 2012 that their son Oliver, at the time only eight months old, was also a type 1 diabetic. In response to the news, Paludo ran a special No. 32 Unite for Diabetes/Duroline paint scheme in the June 2012 NCWTS race at

Texas Motor Speedway Texas Motor Speedway is a speedway located in the northernmost portion of the U.S. city of Fort Worth, Texas – the portion located in Denton County, Texas. The reconfigured track measures with banked 20° in turns 1 and 2 and banked 24 ...

. The scheme featured the blue circle, which is the international symbol for diabetes, and an image of Paludo and his son on the truck's

tonneau A tonneau ( or ) is an area of a car or truck open at the top. It can be for passengers or cargo. A tonneau cover in current automotive terminology is a hard or soft cover that spans the back of a pickup truck to protect the load or to improve ...

cover. In November of that year, Paludo ran a

World Diabetes Day World Diabetes Day is the primary global awareness campaign focusing on diabetes mellitus and is held on 14 November each year. It was led by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), each World Diabetes Day focuses on a theme related to di ...

paint scheme at both Texas Motor Speedway and

Phoenix International Raceway Phoenix Raceway is a 1-mile, low-banked tri-oval race track located in Avondale, Arizona, near Phoenix. The motorsport track opened in 1964 and currently hosts two NASCAR race weekends annually including the final championship race since 2020 ...

Motorsports career results

NASCAR

( key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. ''Italics'' – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)

Xfinity Series

Camping World Truck Series

K&N Pro Series East

ARCA Racing Series

( key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. ''Italics'' – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.) Season still in progress
Ineligible for series points

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Paludo, Miguel Living people 1983 births Sportspeople from Rio Grande do Sul Brazilian racing drivers Brazilian NASCAR drivers NASCAR drivers Sport in Rio Grande do Sul People with type 1 diabetes ARCA Menards Series drivers JR Motorsports drivers