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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Trackhouse Racing announced Saturday that Shane van Gisbergen will compete in the NASCAR Cup Series next season as the organization expands to three full-time cars for 2025.
Van Gisbergen is set to drive the storied No. 88 Chevrolet in NASCAR’s top division next season. SVG, a New Zealand native who won three titles in the Australian Repco Supercars Championship, becomes a full-time teammate to fellow Trackhouse full-timers Ross Chastain in the No. 1 Chevy and Daniel Suárez, who re-signed with the No. 99 Chevrolet team earlier this month.
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“This is obviously a huge moment,” team owner Justin Marks said Saturday at Daytona International Speedway. “Really, really thrilled and excited that Shane put the trust in us and made a huge commitment in leaving a very successful career in Australia and New Zealand and moved to a new country and sort of (started) over and put his faith and his trust in us. That means a lot to us. And he’s put in a tremendous amount of work. Great human being, very, very talented race car driver, and somebody with an incredibly, incredibly bright future. So we’re very excited to have them here.”
Van Gisbergen has excelled in NASCAR national-tour competition since making a splash by winning the inaugural Chicago Street Race event in his 2023 Cup Series debut. The 35-year-old transplant from the Supercars Championship ranks moved to a full-time ride in the Xfinity Series this year, and he has won three times in a joint effort between Trackhouse and Kaulig Racing.
“It’s been a pretty awesome 18 months,” van Gisbergen said. “Yeah, it’s been a huge life change, as Justin said, and everything he said was going to happen has happened. I never thought it would happen this quick and I’m very glad we’ve done the learning year this year in Xfinity. Kaulig Racing has been great to work with, and then also a lot more races to finish the year now. Been a huge learning experience but just excited to get full time in the Cup Series next year.”
As part of Saturday‘s introduction, Trackhouse announced it acquired a charter, which will guarantee SVG’s entry in all 36 Cup Series events next season. It’s the most recent expansion move by Trackhouse, which began as a single-car team with Suárez in the 2021 season before it grew to two teams with the addition of Chastain the next year.
The No. 88 also carries significance with a legacy of its own, most recently made famous by NASCAR Hall-of-Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr., who piloted the same numeral in 10 Cup campaigns for Hendrick Motorsports. Marks reached out to Earnhardt Jr., Kelly Earnhardt Miller and Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman Jeff Gordon for permission to use the number moving forward.
https://x.com/DaleJr/status/1827450946042917296
“It’s important for us to have the endorsement,” Marks said. “(Had) a great, great exchange with Dale Jr. saying, like, ‘Look, it’s not my number. I mean, I added to the legacy of it. It was important to me personally.‘ But he was proud to see it in good hands, and that’s just something that’s super, super important to me and to this company.”
Trackhouse has run an additional third car as part of its Project 91 initiative, which team founder Marks envisioned as a part-time entry to showcase global motorsports stars. Former Formula 1 World Champion Kimi Räikkönen drove the No. 91 Chevy in two races (2022-23) before van Gisbergen took the car to Victory Lane in Chicago in one of last season’s biggest stories.
Expansion to a third full-time Cup entry may put further plans for Project 91 on pause, but Marks doesn‘t expect it to fade into the ether any time soon.
“We‘re having those discussions right now,” Marks said. “I think that Project 91 is something that, 100% in my mind, I would love to continue. I mean, it was just difficult to do it this year because we have so much on our plate with supporting other divers and other programs and just a lot of business development stuff that we’re working on. But I would expect Project 91 to be back sooner rather than later.
“We’re expanding. Our focus is on running three competitive Cup cars next year, but there’s a lot of interest in Project 91 both from drivers and from commercial partners. So yeah, I would 100% anticipate that to continue in some capacity.”
Van Gisbergen has competed in six Cup Series races in his NASCAR career. He’s scheduled for six more Cup starts this season in the Kaulig No. 16 Chevrolet — Daytona (Aug. 24), Darlington Raceway (Sept. 1), Atlanta Motor Speedway (Sept. 8), Watkins Glen International (Sept. 15), Talladega Superspeedway (Oct. 6) and Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Oct. 20).
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Van Gisbergen’s entry Saturday at Daytona will mark just his third Cup Series start on an oval track. The road-racing standout finished 28th in each of his Cup oval starts this spring (Talladega, Charlotte), and he has two top-five results on ovals (Atlanta, Indianapolis) so far this year in the Xfinity Series.
Zane Smith signed with Trackhouse Racing on a multiyear deal announced in the fall of 2023, driving the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet through an agreement between Trackhouse and Spire for the 2024 Cup Series season. However, Trackhouse announced Friday that it will part ways with Smith at the end of the 2024 campaign, allowing Smith to look for another ride at season‘s end.
“I think when we decide the drivers, it’s a big picture, and we cast a wide net of sort of qualifications,” Marks said. “And it’s commercial support; it’s fitting the company; it’s personality, all that. And you know, we don‘t have four cars; we have three, so that we had to make a decision. We’re excited about the decision that we made with SVG.”
Stephen Doran, who currently serves as Smith‘s crew chief on the No. 71 Chevrolet, will crew chief SVG‘s No. 88 Chevrolet in 2025.
Van Gisbergen‘s addition to Trackhouse‘s full-time fold provides the team with three drivers hailing from three separate countries, with SVG representing New Zealand, Suárez from Mexico and Chastain from the United States.
“I think (it) is a pretty amazing thing for the sport, amazing thing for where motorsports is today,” Marks said. “We’re thrilled and honored to be stewards of international diversity at the top level of motorsports. I mean, I’ve said this a couple times now, with our MotoGP lineup next year and our Cup Series lineup next year, Trackhouse has a roster of athletes that represent Mexico, New Zealand, the USA, Spain and Japan, which is a pretty incredible thing for a motorsports company. And we take a lot of pride in that.
“We just continue to tell a great story, try to get really great people in the house with diverse backgrounds, great stories to tell, compelling personalities, and the end of the day, just really, really dedicated, hard workers.”
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