As Shane van Gisbergen prepares to cross the Pacific Ocean from the Supercars Championship to NASCAR, Trackhouse Racing Team plans to give him a healthy diet of racing across all three national divisions and even grassroots racing in 2024. On Wednesday, the team announced they have signed van Gisbergen to a driver development deal, which entails part-time competition in the NASCAR Cup, Xfinity, and Craftsman Truck Series along with late model starts.
“This announcement means so many things to me,” said van Gisbergen. “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.”
Van Gisbergen stunned the NASCAR world when he won in his Cup début at Chicago in July, the first driver to achieve the feat in over sixty years. He backed it up by finishing tenth in his second top-level start at Indianapolis, with Terry Labonte in 1978 being the last driver to score top tens in his first two Cup races.
Two days before the Indianapolis start, he entered the Truck Series event at nearby Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park for Trackhouse ally Niece Motorsports. He finished nineteenth in his maiden oval race.
Five days after the Truck race, van Gisbergen was released from his Supercars contract with Triple Eight Race Engineering, allowing him to pursue a NASCAR career. While he will finish out the year with the team, he departs Supercars as one of the most accomplished drivers in history with three championships and eighty wins to date. With five races remaining, he sits second in points with four wins; championship leader Brodie Kostecki raced alongside van Gisbergen in the Cup Series at Indianapolis.
“This is going to be a tremendous challenge for Shane but he is a tremendous driver as we have all seen,” commented Trackhouse owner Justin Marks. “Next year will be about getting him acclimated to oval-track racing, superspeedways, 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.”
While he is expected to race Trackhouse’s #91 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in the Cup Series once again, the team did not reveal his 2024 rides in the lower series. He will likely return to Niece for his Truck starts.
