The move is the first step in a long-held US dreams for Waters, although his approach differs from the likes of Shane van Gisbergen and Brodie Kostecki, who both made NASCAR cameos last year.
In both cases they debuted on road or street courses to help limit the culture shock of the move from Supercars.
Waters, however, will debut on a short oval, something that was a deliberate choice after he saw the Martinsville layout during an exploratory trip to the NASCAR race there last year.
“I went to Martinsville 12 months ago, and I’ve done a lot of dirt oval stuff, small stuff in Australia,” said Waters in the lead-up to the Truck outing.
“So for me, I wanted to experience oval racing. And you know, the truck was probably the perfect opportunity to come over here and, do a short oval and get racing.”
When asked if there were plans to join van Gisbergen and Kostecki in making a Cup Series cameo this year, Waters indicated that more Truck races on ovals is the preference.
“One day I’d love to have a drive of [a Cup Series car], but right my thinking is that I want to do some oval racing and experience that side of it, so I think the Truck is a perfect way to do that.
“Even though the cars are a little bit different, I think it’s the best way to learn, so I’d probably prefer to do more Truck stuff.”
While it will cleaning be a steep learning curve, Waters is hoping that his extensive Sprintcar experience will help the transition to bitumen oval racing.
“I think just racing years of oval stuff, it’s only going to help having to search for grip and different lines and things like that,” he said.
“It should only complement what I’m doing this weekend. I think it’s probably a question to ask me after the weekend, once I’ve experienced it and I can see how much it’s actually helped or not.”
The race kicks off at 10:30am AEDT on Saturday.
Get the latest NASCAR news, stats, and US racing coverage at Speedcafe US
Discussion about this post