The die was pretty much cast the moment Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen came to drive his first NASCAR Cup Seriesrace on the streets of Chicago, which just happened to be a first time event for the entire series on a street circuit. While a champion three times in Australia’s vaunted Supercar Series, van Gisbergen hadn’t driven the heavier and more ponderous NASCAR Cup Series cars in anger prior to that weekend.
He returned to race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course a few weeks later but wasn’t as successful as he had been in his first contest, earning a tenth place result. That didn’t matter to Justin Marks, owner of Chevrolet NASCAR squad Trackhouse Racing; Marks knows talent when he sees it and knew van Gisbergen has the talent to make it in NASCAR.
To whit, Trackhouse Racing and van Gisbergen have announced an agreement, whereby the Supercar titleholder and winner of NASCAR’s premier Chicago street race will move to the United States and drive a combination of races in NASCAR’s three national touring series during the 2024 season.
Van Gisbergen, 34, will contest select races in NASCAR’s Cup Series, Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series. He’ll also take part in some late model and other races, Trackhouse Racing revealed.
The driver wanted to make this step after racing Trackhouse’s PROJECT 91 car that brought Kimi Raikkonen to the team and to NASCAR Cup Series racing. Van Gisbergen’s fellow Supercars competitor Brodie Kostecki drove at Indy for Richard Childress Racing under a different program. “This announcement means so many things to me,” van Gisbeergen revealed. “I’m proud of what I have achieved here in Australia, but I’m excited by this new chapter in my career and the opportunities that it brings.
“I’m so thankful to everyone who has played a role in my career so far, especially Triple Eight Race Engineering, and looking forward to finishing our year with a few more highlights! It is time for a new challenge and this adventure into NASCAR will be the biggest challenge of my career and one I’m really looking forward to. I want to thank Justin Marks, and everyone at Trackhouse Racing who have taken a chance on me and given me this opportunity. I’m excited to get to America and getting the season started.”
Results do matter to teams and sanctioning bodies. They are the means to evaluate drivers and crew members on a daily, if not annual basis. Van Gisbergen’s dual results: his win in Chicago as a first time driver and his tenth place result at Indianapolis came in his sole starts in NASCAR’s premier Cup Series. The only other NASCAR experience this Kiwi has came August 11th at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park where he made his paved oval career debut, keeping a lead lap position until the final few tours, and finishing 18th.
Trackhouse is designing van Gisbergen’s 2024 schedule to properly introduce their driver to NASCAR and its variety of circuits and series. “This is going to be a tremendous challenge for Shane,” Marks said, “but he is a tremendous driver, as we have all seen. Next year will be about getting him acclimated to oval track racing, super speedways, 1.5 mile tracks and everything he has never experienced in his career. It’s obviously going to be a learning process, but we think Shane will perform quite well.”
Currently in Australia and driving in the Supercars Series, van Gisbergen will join current Trackhouse racers Daniel Suarez and Ross Chastain in 2024. Chastain neatly set the stage for van Gisbergen’s arrival by winning the June 25th Cup Series race at Nashville Superspeedway in Tennessee a week before van Gisbergen’s Chicago victory. A week after Chicago, Suarez finished second at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia.
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