UPDATE – January 2nd, 2024
Shane van Gisbergen will compete in the ARCA Menards Series season-opener at Daytona International Speedway, Trackhouse Racing confirmed via social media on Tuesday.
DOUBLE DUTY AT @DAYTONA!@shanevg97 will run the season-opening @ARCA_Racing race for @RacePRG in addition to making his @NASCAR_Xfinity Series debut with @TeamChevy. pic.twitter.com/vXKZYdGwO2
— Trackhouse Racing (@TeamTrackhouse) January 2, 2024
The 34-year-old driver will be piloting an entry for Pinnacle Racing Group in the season-opening superspeedway event, the team that fielded the No. 28 Chevrolet SS in the ARCA Menards Series East last season for Luke Fenhaus.
Pinnacle Racing Group has yet to make an official announcement regarding its plans for the 2024 ARCA Menards Series campaign, so as of this time, there is no word on the car number that the Auckland, New Zealand-native will pilot at Daytona.
Further updates will be added to this story, as they become available.
ORIGINAL STORY – December 15th, 2023
Shane van Gisbergen, a three-time champion in Australian Supercars, will compete in the season-opener for the ARCA Menards Series on February 17 at Daytona International Speedway.
Ty Norris, President of Trackhouse Racing, confirmed in an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Friday that the organization is working to put something together for the Auckland, New Zealand native to contest the event.
The primary reason for doing so, is to ensure that Van Gisbergen is approved to compete in the NASCAR Xfinity Series event at the 2.5-mile superspeedway, the first event in a full-time campaign in the No. 97 Chevrolet for Kaulig Racing.
Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports reports that NASCAR will require the 34-year-old driver to compete in the ARCA Menards Series event at Daytona, in order to get approval to take the green flag for the NASCAR Xfinity Series event later that evening.
I am a little surprised considering races are same day but NASCAR will require Shane van Gisbergen to do the ARCA race at Daytona in order to do Xfinity race. Gives him another practice (and also could do the testing for ARCA) and a race.
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) December 15, 2023
“Been quite a few conversations with [NASCAR] through this process, and actually spoke with Elton Sawyer a couple of days ago, and we’re currently in the process now of getting him entered in the ARCA race at Daytona,” said Norris. “There’s a test in January, they will be on track, there will be observation – the Xfinity Series has a pretty lengthy practice, so there’s a lot of places to be observed and a lot of opportunities to be observed.”
Norris adds that a combination of the ARCA Menards Series test session and race, along with an extended NASCAR Xfinity Series practice session, should be sufficient in getting SVG approved for Daytona, and thus every track on the schedule.
Details surrounding an ARCA Menards Series effort for Van Gisbergen at Daytona, including the organization he’ll compete for and the vehicle number, will be announced at a later date, once things are finalized.
