The Tickford Racing Supercars driver made his NASCAR debut behind the wheel of a Ford F-150 earlier this month at Martinsville, where it was announced on the local Fox Sports telecast that he had also sealed a Kansas outing.
While Waters said post-race that no such deal had been done at that time, it has now indeed come to pass, with the race at Kansas Speedway to take place on Saturday, May 4 (local time).
The two-time Bathurst 1000 pole-sitter will again line up with ThorSport Racing in the #66 Ford, with continued backing from Tradie.
In announcing the deal, Waters also addressed the apparent conflict between the Fox Sports reporting and his own comments, explaining that he did not want to jump the gun before his Kansas berth was approved by NASCAR.
“It’s great to be getting another crack at racing the Ford truck for ThorSport and hopefully I can adapt to the Kansas Speedway reasonably quickly,” he said.
“The track is almost three times long as Martinsville and has an average lap-speed of just on 180mph [approximately 289km/h], although I have heard it’s less of a bullring than Martinsville was.
“I’ll spend some more time in the simulator to accelerate the learning and look forward to the challenge.
“I also appreciate some news services have already mention the Kansas race, but what nobody knew at the time was NASCAR have stringent criteria they apply to licensing for the high-speed venues, and I needed to get through Martinsville before I could be assessed for approval to run at Kansas. This has now been completed.
“As was the case with Martinsville, the Kansas event falls nicely between the NZ and WA Supercar rounds, which works really well, and I’m super-fresh and ready to go for Taupo this weekend.
“The team at Tickford have worked around the clock to have my Albert Park car stripped and completely rebuilt for the weekend ahead, and I’d love nothing more than to reward the collective effort with a competitive showing throughout, so bring it on.”
Waters crashed out in unfortunate circumstances at Martinsville but was still left thrilled with the experience, although he insists he has “unfinished business” in Supercars before a permanent switch might occur.
This weekend at Taupo, he is back in the #6 Monster Energy Mustang, which has been rebuilt after a crash with Matt Payne in the penultimate race of the Albert Park event.
The sole, 90-minute practice session for the ITM Taupo Super400 starts tomorrow at 12:55 local time/10:55 AEST.
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