Three-time Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen is “Coming to America” to showcase his talent in one of the world’s premier racing series.
The native of Auckland, New Zealand, has 80 Supercars Championship victories, which is fourth on the series’ list of all-time winners. He has won the famed Bathurst 1000 three times.
But what he accomplished on the streets of Chicago on July 2 was enough for the 34-year-old to consider making a career-defining move.
On that day, van Gisbergen made his NASCAR Cup Series debut driving the No. 91 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet in the Chicago Street Race — the NASCAR Cup Series’ first street race.
Van Gisbergen’s performance was epic as he drove to a stunning victory, becoming the first racer since Johnny Rutherford at Daytona in 1963 to win a NASCAR race in his very first attempt.
Van Gisbergen returned to the United States for another NASCAR Cup Series race in August, the Verizon 200 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, and finished 10th.
Trackhouse founder and co-owner Justin Marks worked behind the scenes and devised a blended schedule for van Gisbergen in 2024 that includes the ARCA Menards Series with Pinnacle Racing Group; the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series; full time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with Kaulig Racing; and part time in the NASCAR Cup Series for Trackhouse.
“What Justin Marks, Ty Norris (Trackhouse president) and the Trackhouse team has put together is very exciting,” van Gisbergen said. “I have a lot of work to do and a lot of experience to gain, but it’s the best way for me to prepare for a 2025 NASCAR Cup Series opportunity.
“To come here and start again with a new learning experience, I’m very excited about it.”
He is the first driver from New Zealand to win a NASCAR Cup Series race and will be the first driver from Oceania (the geographic region that includes Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania and thousands of islands throughout the Pacific Ocean) since Tasmanian Marcos Ambrose, who raced in NASCAR from 2007 to ’14.
Van Gisbergen is the latest in a long line of international racing greats who have come to America in search of victory lane.
Dating back to the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911, the lure of racing in America was magnetic to many of the greats of that era.
France’s Jules Goux in 2013 and Rene Thomas in 2014 were winners of the Indianapolis 500 as were Italy’s Ralph DePalma in 1915 and Dario Resta in 1916.
Argentina’s Juan Manuel Fangio, the Formula 1 great, attempted to qualify for the 1958 Indianapolis 500 but did not make the field.
That ushered in the “Golden Age” of the Indianapolis 500 with Sir Jack Brabham of New South Wales bringing the first rear-engine car to the Indianapolis 500, the Cooper Climax, in 1961. Every other car in the field for the 50th anniversary Indianapolis 500 was a front-engine roadster, but Brabham started 13th and finished ninth in the smaller, sleeker, rear-engine car.
A.J. Foyt was the last driver to win the Indianapolis 500 in a front-engine car in 1964. By 1965, there were only six front-engine cars in the race, just one in 1966 and in 1967, all cars in the race were rear-engine machines.
Colin Chapman, the famed car builder and owner of Lotus, fielded cars in the Indianapolis 500 in the 1960s. The great Jim Clark made his debut in 1963. Two years later, he won the race in the famed Ford-powered Lotus with members of NASCAR’s Wood Brother Racing as his pit crew.