The New Zealander is set to make his Xfinity Series debut month on the Daytona 500 undercard but, in order to do so, must also participate in the ARCA race which takes place earlier that Saturday, February 17 (local time).
The ARCA field descended on Daytona International Speedway today for a pre-season test, in which van Gisbergen ended up 13th-fastest of 53 drivers.
Driving a Pinnacle Racing Group entry, specifically the #28 Chevrolet, he completed 33 laps with a personal-best time of 0:49.674s, 0.796sd off the very best pace of the day which was set by Jake Finch (0:48.878s).
Action was supposed to start at 10:00 local time/02:00 AEDT and run until 17:00 LT, but was extended to 21:00 LT due to a late start caused by rain.
A total of 78 drivers were on the official entry list, with van Gisbergen sharing the sole Pinnacle car with Connor Mosack, who ended up 45th on the timesheet on a 0:52.626s after just seven laps.
Speaking upon the announcement of his Xfinity deal, SVG had admitted, “superspeedways is probably what I’m most anxious about, I guess, or unsure about what’s going to happen or how the cars race.”
For the New Zealander, the day was also something of a back to the future moment considering the machinery at his disposal.
ARCA uses bodies based on the Gen 6 Cup Series cars and hence the Chevrolets are silhouettes of the VF Holden Commodore, which was exported to the United States as the SS.
It was a VF Commodore in which van Gisbergen won the first of his three Supercars Championship titles, in his first season at Triple Eight Race Engineering, in 2016.
Daytona is not entirely new to him either, given his starts in the IMSA race which uses the roval layout of the Florida venue.
ARCA testing is due to resume tomorrow at 10:00 LT, weather permitting.
Day 2 report: van Gisbergen top 10 on Day 2 of Daytona ARCA test
Get the latest NASCAR news, stats, and US racing coverage at Speedcafe US
Discussion about this post