With 50 cars on the entry list and only 40 grid positions available, a sense of jeopardy awaited drivers at the first event of the season, on the Daytona 500 undercard.
Van Gisbergen was drawn in Group 4 of seven for qualifying at the Florida superspeedway and would set the 35th-fastest time in the field, a 50.927s, one position outside the automatic cut-off.
However, his Pinnacle Racing Group team has now announced that Car #7, which had been qualified 17th by Eric Caudell, has now been withdrawn, meaning the New Zealander will start.
The race has been moved from Saturday to late Friday night (local time) due to inclement weather forecasts.
Van Gisbergen had been in the same group as eventual pole-sitter Willie Mullins, but lost the draft when he was unable to get a good enough launch off pit road.
Mullins clocked a 48.982s while Andy Jankowiak was 34th-fastest on a 50.534s, 0.393s faster than the three-time Supercars champion.
Three grid positions were also available on the basis of 2023 owners’ points standings for those who failed to automatically qualify in that top 34, but that was not enough for Car #28 either.
However, PRG has now advised, via X (nee: Twitter), “With the No. 7 car withdrawing from tonight’s ARCA race, @shanevg97 qualifying lap will now put him in the field, starting 34th.”
With the No. 7 car withdrawing from tonight’s ARCA race, @shanevg97 qualifying lap will now put him in the field, starting 34th.
— Pinnacle Racing Group (@RacePRG) February 16, 2024
SVG is contesting ARCA this weekend as part of licencing for his Xfinity Series debut, having never raced on a superspeedway previously.
It had been expected that NASCAR would allow him to partake in the Xfinity Series sessions given the Kiwi’s practice performance in ARCA, when he was 13th-quickest in the PRG Chevrolet, but that is a moot point now.
Under the revised schedule, the 80-lap ARCA race will start at approximately Friday 22:30 ET/Saturday 14:30 AEDT.
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