Waters now has one Cup Series start to his name, on the road course that is Sonoma Raceway, as well as two in the Truck Series on ovals.
Two of those three outings have resulted in DNFs, although not particularly of his own making (if at all), given both crashes on his Truck debut at Martinsville were reactionary and he was run into twice at Sonoma.
The Tickford Racing driver finished 19th in the Kansas Truck race after qualifying his ThorSport F-150 20th, drawing the ire of fellow Ford pilot Layne Riggs with late-race contact.
Waters was one of two Supercars full-timers in the field at Sonoma, the other being Will Brown, with interest in the duo no doubt higher than it otherwise would have been given van Gisbergen’s sensational debut win in Chicago last July.
“It was obviously good last year but all these guys came over and expect big things, but it’s not easy to come here and just show up,” cautioned van Gisbergen.
“Will did a great job [in practice] but found out how tough it was [in qualifying] – he was on the wrong side of a tenth of a second and lost seven spots or something – it’s so competitive here.
“But, I’m glad people want to come here and race more. It’s an amazing challenge and opportunity.
“It’s obviously changed a lot in Australia so people are wanting to come over here and try things and that’s pretty exciting, I think.
“Hopefully, more guys come over.
“I’d love to see Cam here full-time – I think he’d be an amazing talent on the ovals, and so would Brodie [Kostecki] – so hopefully they keep trying to get here.”
PIRTEK POLL: Supercars drivers in NASCAR
Waters and Kostecki, the latter of whom raced in Cup last August on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, both made their NASCAR debuts with some applicable real-world experience.
The former is a regular in sprintcar racing during the Australian summer while the latter cut his teeth in stock cars in the United States as a teenager.
What van Gisbergen meant by his reference to ‘change’ in Australia is not clear, although the Supercars calendar is presently very skinny and the New Zealander was obviously not a fan of the Gen3 ruleset which debuted in what would be his final season in the category (at least for the foreseeable future).
Furthermore, Waters said ahead of the Sonoma weekend, “The Next Gen car [current Cup Series car] is fairly similar to our old Supercar, our Gen2 Supercar, so it should make a bit more sense to me than what the Truck did.”
He has committed his short-term future to Tickford but told Speedcafe post-race at Sonoma, “Whenever it fits into my schedule, I’d love to come over and do a few more [NASCAR races].”
Brown, who finished three laps down after ongoing electrical problems for his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, told Speedcafe, “It was awesome to come over here and experience Cup but I’d love to run it back and hopefully we get the opportunity one day.”
He is contracted to Triple Eight Race Engineering for 2025 and rubbished negative comments from Supercars doomsayers when his NASCAR cameo was announced.
Brown leads the Supercars Championship on the way to this weekend’s Betr Darwin Triple Crown at Hidden Valley Raceway.
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