The three-time Bathurst 1000 winner had long been locked in to drive the #16 Chevrolet Camaro in New York State but now AJ Allmendinger has been added to the field in Car #13, with backing from race title sponsor Go Bowling.

Van Gisbergen and Allmendinger are full-timers with Kaulig in the NASCAR Xfinity Series while also sharing the #16 entry, with a host of other drivers, in the Cup Series.

The move means that the Chris Rice-led squad is set to field three cars in the Cup race at Watkins Glen on the weekend of Sunday, September 15, with Daniel Hemric competing full-time in the #31 Chevrolet.

Allmendinger scored his first Cup Series race win at Watkins Glen back in 2014 while van Gisbergen has won the last two road course races in the Xfinity Series, earlier this month at Portland and Sonoma.

Back in May, after testing but before racing at Sonoma, van Gisbergen spoke glowingly about America’s old-fashioned road courses.

“I love the tracks here, how there’s not much run-off,” he said.

“COTA [Circuit of The Americas] is an exception but, you know, you race in Australia now [on] the new tracks, or Europe, [and] you can just get away with so much.

“Whereas at Sonoma or Watkins Glen, massive commitment tracks but the wall’s right beside the tracks, so the risk versus reward is a huge payoff.

“I love tracks like that and Sonoma, for me, it’s one of the best tracks I’ve been to lately.”

Both van Gisbergen and Allmendinger are concentrating on the Xfinity Series this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Each will arrive there off the back of a tough weekend at Iowa Speedway, where the New Zealander crashed out of both Practice and the Xfinity Race, and the American out of both the Xfinity Race and the Cup Race due to right-front tyre failures.

Xfinity Practice and Qualfying at New Hampshire takes place from Friday at 16:05 ET/Saturday at 06:05 AEST.

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