The three-time Bathurst 1000 winner is set to undertake at least 41 NASCAR races this year, including the entirety of the 33-race Xfinity Series.
While he has a small amount of oval experience, namely a single event in Trucks at Indianapolis Raceway Park last August, the NASCAR calendar is such that one of the biggest challenges is first up, namely Daytona.
Van Gisbergen’s preparation includes studying onboard vision and, now that the new year has ticked over, simulator sessions.
“Normally, you’d watch them and [it] just looks like cars driving around flat-out,” he said.
“But, now I’ve been trying to study it as much as I can, and there was a Denny Hamlin onboard from, I think, last year’s [2022] Talladega race where he had to come back through the field…
“I’ve been studying that, just trying to see how it all works and obviously I’ll get some SMT data and you can see more of the driver inputs.
“But, watching that, it’s like a high-speed chess match but also a lottery, I guess, in some ways.
“It’s going to be a tough first race. I don’t really know how to approach it or what to expect.
“We get a little bit of practice so I can get a feel for the car and cars around me at that speed.
“But, that style of racing is so far removed from everything I’ve ever done.
“So, superspeedways is probably what I’m most anxious about, I guess, or unsure about what’s going to happen or how the cars race.
“That’s going to be a tough first one.”
Fortunately for van Gisbergen, he is now locked into the ARCA Menards race on the Saturday of the Daytona 500 weekend in order to be permitted to compete later that day in the Xfinity Series.
He has already clocked up plenty of miles around Daytona and Talladega in the virtual world on iRacing, however.
On his performances there, he laughed, “I’ve crashed a lot; I’ve won a couple of times, too.”
One Daytona outing which the three-time Supercars champion is skipping is the 24-hour IMSA season-opener.
He has competed in that race five times, as recently as 2020, and finished second in class in 2015, but will be concentrating on NASCAR this January.
“No, not this year,” confirmed van Gisbergen.
“I had some talks to do it with teams and it would have been a great race – I miss doing that race; it’s a fun one – but, I really need to focus on the first Daytona coming up in the Xfinity and do my prep for that.”
While contracted to Trackhouse Racing, van Gisbergen has been placed at Kaulig Racing in Xfinity and will make his ARCA cameo with Pinnacle Racing Group.
Both the ARCA and Xfinity races at Daytona take place on Saturday, February 17 (local time).
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