By: Ashley McCubbin

With his road course SuperCar background, and winning in his NASCAR Cup Series debut at the Chicago road course, some would believe that Shane Van Gisbergen would have Circuit of the Americas circled on the calendar for 2024. However, that as not quite the case as he admits to being more excited about the ovals, due to the learning that comes with it.

“I just know that I’ll be good here at these tracks,” he said prior to the NASCAR Xfinity Series race. “I’ve got great teams and two awesome WeatherTech Camaros. I’ve got great equipment and there’s no excuses to not do well at these races. I’ve still gone hard with my preparation, but really the ovals are my focus.

“That’s what I have to learn to make sure I’m ready when I’m in the Cup Series next year. These weekends, I just have to make sure I have fun and do well.”

With the splash he made on the scene last season, Trackhouse Racing signed him to a contract which sees him running a full Xfinity Series schedule for Kaulig Racing in preparation for the Cup Series in 2025. Thus far, he has scored a pair of top-10’s including a season-best third at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“I love that at the moment, it’s something different every week, and I’m just learning so much,” he explained. “Every stage in every race, so far, I keep getting better and get to the end of the race and go, ‘oh I wish I could start that again knowing what I do now’. The second-half of the year is going to be good, going back to the tracks I already know. But yeah, just the preparation is so intense when it’s something you don’t know. Especially this week doing both classes, having to watch two races and two sets of onboards and understanding the cars, is probably going to be the biggest thing.

“I had a good chat with Marcos Ambrose last night, and he said the Xfinity car will be unlike anything I’ve ever driven.. the way it brakes and the way the rearend works. He said it’s probably similar to the Cup cars he was racing, so hopefully those things help and helps me speed up the learning process.”

Van Gisbergen went onto add the variety of events has also been awesome, from enjoying races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Phoenix Raceway – to great battles on the track, including recently with Anthony Alfredo.

“We had an awesome battle where we were two-wide for so many laps,” he recalled. “It was bloody annoying because we were the same speed and I couldn’t get away from him (laughs). We were slowing each other up, but it was so much fun just racing with each other. We had an awesome race. So yeah, that kind of stuff, I’m really enjoying. Learning other guys and how they race, and mostly everybody has been pretty good.”