Shane van Gisbergen is only a couple of months away from making his anticipated full-time foray into NASCAR, and he is all-in. Running full-time in the Xfinity Series for Kaulig Racing, the New Zealander will race 40 times between the Xfinity schedule and seven Cup races, including racing on superspeedways for the very first time.
SVG spoke with Nick DeGroot from motorsport.com about the challenges he has already faced to this point and what lies ahead with such a busy schedule.
"It's been a whirlwind since Chicago," van Gisbergen said about how quickly this has all come together. "Packing up everything. My whole life. Moving from Australia to America. It's been massive. but pretty exciting the way the program sort of escalated from ten races to now a full season and seven Cup races. What Justin (Marks) and Ty (Norris) and the Trackhouse team have put together is really exciting and I have a lot of learning to do and a lot of experience to gain quickly, but I think it's the best way to do it to prepare myself for a 2025 Cup opportunity."
He went on to talk about how learning to race ovals in a stock car might be the easiest thing to do, compared to moving to the States, finding a house, getting a visa and a driver's license, and making all the necessary adjustments to life in America. That doesn't mean van Gisbergen isn't a little anxious about tracks like Daytona and Talladega, and he spoke about how tough those tracks will be in his opinion.
"You watch them and it just looks like cars driving around flat-out, but now I've been trying to study it as much as I can," van Gisbergen said. "Watching that is like a high-speed chess match but also a lottery I guess. Our first race. I don't really know how to approach it or what to expect. We get a little bit of practice so I can get a feel for the car and the cars around me at that speed, but that style of racing is so far removed from everything I've ever done. Superspeedways are probably what I'm most anxious about, or unsure about what's going to happen or how the cars race. That's going to be a tough first one."
He was referring to his first Xfinity — and superspeedway appearance — at the season-opening race at Daytona.
However, he might be better prepared than he originally thought, as NASCAR insists that he will have to run the ARCA Series race at Daytona before he will be allowed to race in the Xfinity Series race at Daytona.
That is a slight bummer, given the guy has already won a NASCAR Cup race, but understandable since he has never raced at Daytona or Talladega, nor has he had any experience racing in the draft generated at those tracks for that matter.
SVG seems a little nervous about racing on superspeedways, but that's nothing to fret about because he's got plenty of learning to do as he drives towards his quest to compete full-time in Cup. van Gisbergen has already proven he can compete with the best NASCAR has to offer and he should be able to quickly adapt to superspeedway racing.
