Shane van Gisbergen is set to watch this weekend’s IndyCar race from the Team Penske timing stand of Scott McLaughlin.
Van Gisbergen is back in the United States for his second NASCAR Cup Series start, which will take place on the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
However, this weekend’s event sees NASCAR share billing with IndyCar, which will race on the Saturday afternoon, before the Cup Series on the Sunday.
Van Gisbergen therefore has the opportunity to watch former Supercars foe, and now good friend, McLaughlin firsthand.
“They’ve invited me to go and watch the race on the pit box, which will be which be awesome, and go and cheer him on and Scott Dixon as well,” said the Project91 Camaro driver.
“It’s just cool to be a part of it. I’ve obviously watched IndyCar so much, the last couple of years, cheering him on, and that series looks awesome, how competitive it is.
“Those guys are at the top of their game and looking forward to seeing a bit how they work as well.”
Van Gisbergen has in fact already seen McLaughlin go about his IndyCar craft, having sat in on the #3 Chevrolet pilot’s simulator session at the General Motors Technical Center.
“He was at the simulator when I was, so they invited me in to sit in on his session and got to listen for a bit, watch how he was driving, and how that side of things works,” recounted SVG, earlier this week.
“It was very cool to see. It’s awesome to be in a similar world to him again.
“We went for lunch on my last trip and he was just so encouraging, I guess, to come over here and give it a crack.
“It’s awesome to be around him again and I haven’t seen an IndyCar race since they were in Surfers [Paradise] in 2008.
“It’s going to be awesome to go and watch him and Scott Dixon race as well.”
McLaughlin said, “I saw him at the simulator the other day.
“I felt it was cool to have him here, come into our session, just watch me race around for a little bit.
“It was funny, the differences between NASCAR and IndyCar; he was laughing at that.
“Yeah, look, I’m excited. I think he’s going to jump on the pit stand or something like that during one of those sessions over the races this weekend.
“Super cool to be racing the same weekend as him and Brodie [Kostecki, who makes his NASCAR Cup Series debut]. It’s going to be an awesome thing.”
McLaughlin, however, will be unable to watch Sunday’s NASCAR race.
“I am actually flying to New York to pick up my dog and driving home 10 hours,” he explained.
“I’ll be driving and listening to it on the radio.”
Before then, van Gisbergen makes his oval debut when the Trucks Series race gets underway today at 21:00 ET/11:00 AEST, with his #41 Chevrolet set to start from 28th on the grid.
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