SHANE van Gisbergen admits he’s now more tempted than ever to experience a NASCAR oval event, having watched on as his Trackhouse Racing stablemate Ross Chastain scored pole at Nashville Superspeedway.
Van Gisbergen is in the States ahead of his Cup Series debut next weekend at the Chicago Street Course.
There he will race the Chevrolet team’s Project 91 wildcard car with primary backing from Enhance Health.
Van Gisbergen has typically seemed indifferent about the prospect of oval racing, but asked about it in a media conference at the Nashville circuit this morning (AEST), the three-time Supercars champion answered with a pep in his step.
“We had a small chat about that earlier,” he said, referring to Trackhouse boss Justin Marks who was sat to his right.
“I’ve never really thought about ovals too much but you’d love to have a go.
“Like watching yesterday how committed the guys were in qualifying and they had the practice and then you sit around all day and you get one lap, so to see how committed everyone was and see who was braver than the others into Turn 1, it was pretty cool to watch.
“It sucked watching, I wanted to be out there.
“So yeah, I’d want to have a go one day.”
Van Gisbergen’s preparations for Chicago begin tomorrow (Monday in the US) with a test at the Charlotte Roval.
“That’s just to get a feel and make sure that I’m comfortable in the car and everything is working, and then it’s all simulator stuff really,” he said.
“I think I get two sessions in the sim trying to learn and just get comfortable with the car and also the dynamic of the team with the engineer and crew chief, working out how that communication works.
“The strategy is quite different so I have got to do a lot of study on that; obviously the pits close when the yellow comes out, you don’t have a pit speed limiter and stuff like that, so just learning how to manage that side of the race is quite different.
“And then obviously we’re not racing for points so we don’t have to focus on the stages and stuff like that.
“We have got to come in and do our best but you also have got to race with respect as well, like these guys are fighting for their championship every week, so have got to come in and stay out of trouble I guess too.”
Van Gisbergen added that with a strong preparation “we can achieve anything” and again hinted of this initial cameo: “maybe it will lead to more”.
