By Ric Chapman For Daily Mail Australia
04:49 19 May 2023, updated 04:49 19 May 2023
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Reigning Bathurst 1000 championship Shane van Gisbergen is set to test himself in NASCAR in the United States after the Kiwi recently launched a stunning spray at the Supercars series.
The Triple Eight Race Engineering star has accepted an invitation to drive in Chicago at a NASCAR meet in July driving for Trackhouse Racing – the team co-owned by Grammy Award-winning rapper Armando Christian ‘Pitbull’ Pérez.
The Chicago Street Race street course race is the first of its kind for the NASCAR Cup Series and van Gisbergen will compete as a one-off opportunity to test his skills at that level.
‘It’s [NASCAR] one of the biggest motor racing series’ in the world,’ van Gisbergen said.
‘To get an opportunity to be part of it and jump straight into the top level in America, it’s unbelievable.’
The Kiwi born van Gisbergen, who drove the No. 97 Holden ZB Commodore for Triple Eight Race Engineering to win Bathurst last year, will race in the No. 91 Chevrolet for Trackhouse Racing.
The champion driver has revealed he will be heading to the US immediately after the Darwin race on June 18 before returning to resume the Supercars season at Townsville on July 7.
Trackhouse Racing is co-owned by Justin Marks and Pitbull. The team already has an impressive driver line-up of Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez.
Van Gisbergen has admired the sport from afar for many years, so when Trackhouse came knocking he opened the door to the opportunity fuelling some doubters who believe he is getting ready to quit Supercars.
Van Gisbergen recently fuelled that fire after taking several swipes at Supercars during an interview after Bathurst, saying renewing his contract for one year had more to do with his love for the Triple Eight team than the series itself.
The Kiwi indicated he was keen to pursue more rally and speedway racing, while also contemplating a future in the United States.
‘I have to be careful with what I say because it gets taken out of context sometimes, but, we have new cars which are awesome so taking the product overseas – what’s the point. Let’s grow the sport here, go to Winton and get people to fall in love with the sport again,’ he told Fox Sports.
‘It’s weird because the series is worse than ever, all the background stuff, it’s really bad,’
‘My team though is awesome. I loved the challenge this year with the car.
‘But I’m here to race and you have to forget not to be selfish sometimes.’
Van Gisbergen has consistently raised concerns about the Gen3 cars when discussing his future, with Red Bull transitioning from racing Commodores to Chevrolet Camaros after the demise of Holden.
‘It has changed but in some ways still stayed the same and I do just love being part of this team, they are a great group of people. Saying that I’d love Supercars to race more.’
Going to Chicago, while daunting, has had the pain eased a bit by Marcos Ambrose blazing the trail for Aussie drivers in recent years.
‘It looks like a completely different way of racing and style of racing with the yellows, the green-white checkers and the way they run the pit stops,’ van Gisbergen said.
‘It’s very different to anything I’ve done before so I really have to study and make sure I’m sharp when the time comes.’
Ambrose, who was the Supercars supremo in 2003 and 2004, raced in 227 NASCAR events over a seven-year period.
And Ambrose received a call from van Gisbergen asking what he should expect.
‘Marcus was one of the first guys I rang for advice,’ van Gisbergen said.
‘He helped me out a lot, just gave me a lot of basic pointers really and how to approach the weekend.’