Shane Van Gisbergen to race Late Models as part of NASCAR move

Shane van Gisbergen is coming to the United States and his first full-time season as a NASCAR bound stock car driver will include numerous Late Model starts in 2024.

The three-time Australian Supercars champion shocked the NASCAR world in July when he won the inaugural Cup Series race on the Streets of Chicago. Starting with that weekend, the 34-year-old from Auckland, New Zealand immediately contemplated a full-time move to the States and NASCAR.

That decision was fully realized on Wednesday night when he signed a full-time deal with Trackhouse Racing, the organization that fielded the car in Chicago, for a schedule next season that includes select starts across all three national touring divisions.

The press release also said van Gisbergen will make starts in a Late Model as well all in the name of acclimating himself to ovals and the American racing culture in advance of a full-time Cup Series campaign by 2025.

“What we’re looking at for 2024 is a number of Cup races out of Trackhouse Racing and a bunch of Xfinity, some Trucks, some ARCA and Late Models,” said Trackhouse owner Justin Marks on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “We’re not going to start a Xfinity team or Truck team but we have a lot of great partners we work with inside the Chevrolet camp and just the relationships we got so we have the ability to curate a year of development for him so he can really learn the lifestyle, oval track racing, Late Model racing and just how to put everything together.

“If there’s an opportunity for him to be a Cup driver in 2025, we need to make sure 2024 prepares him for that.”

Marks said his schedule for SVG is 95 percent done and finalizing it is just a matter of seeing where all the pieces fit once the various national and regional tour schedules are releases first.

“He’s going to be a major presence in the Xfinty Series next year, we’re going to put some great Cup races together for him,” Marks said. “And honestly, it’s going to be some grassroots stuff too – Late Models and dirt racing.

“Just learning for him how to be a circle track driver in the states.”

Marks, of course, co-owns the CARS Tour with Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton, naturally leading to this sentiment …

Careful what you wish for.

— Justin Marks (@JustinMarksTH) September 14, 2023

Marks also owns a straight rail Late Model making some Pro and Super Late Model appearances also conceivable.

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