"Biased" Shane Van Gisbergen reveals his pipe dream of racing in New Zealand amid NASCAR's International leap

After securing pole in the inaugural Cup race at Mexico City, Shane Van Gisbergen shared his 'pipe dream' to race in his home country of New Zealand. He noted that NASCAR has previously ventured as far as Japan and Melbourne and hoped that the trend will continue to his 'part of the world'.

NASCAR previously held non-points-paying exhibition events in Japan during the 1990s. Before that, the NASCAR Winston Cup series held a one-off racing exhibition in 1988 at the Calder Park Thunderdome in Melbourne. Notably, it was the first-ever NASCAR event held outside North America. The track was even modeled after Charlotte Motor Speedway's banked oval.

Van Gisbergen, the three-time Australian Supercars champion, sees international expansion as a natural next step for NASCAR. Speaking to the media after Saturday's (June 14) qualifying, he said,

"I think it's obviously awesome, but I'm biased being a foreigner, but you can see the reception and how many NASCAR fans are here that are happy to see NASCARs race in real life for the first time. I think it's awesome and i'd love for it to expand you know, but obviously biased. It's a pipe dream, obviously to have NASCAR in my part of the world, but they have raced in Japan before and also called to Park in Melbourne... So i'd love to race down there."

Shane Van Gisbergen has struggled in the ovals so far, but has always excelled in the road courses. He previously made headlines when he won his debut Cup Series race in the 2023 Chicago Street race. With the pole in Mexico, he hopes to achieve his second career win.

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Shane Van Gisbergen rues lost potential after his pole in Mexico

Shane Van Gisbergen made history on Saturday as the third driver to score their first two career poles on road courses. The Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez has been reconfigured to a 14-turn layout, and the Trackhouse Racing driver quickly adapted to post a time of 1:32.776 before rain curtailed the day's session. The laptime was enough to guarantee him the top spot in the starting line-up, but SVG remained unimpressed with his outing.

In a press release, SVG began by mentioning the key changes that helped him grab pole.

"We made some big swings last night. Our #88 Safety Culture Chevrolet was a bit better. We had a lot more front grip, which is what I needed," he said.

He then revealed where he was missing out compared to the other drivers.

“But my laps were average... like you'll see everyone was beating me in the first half of the lap, and then my lap gets good at the end,” he added.

Despite his shortcomings, Shane Van Gisbergen clocked his fastest lap at a speed of 93.904 mph. He's followed by RFK Racing's Ryan Preece, who went 93.839 mph to secure the second place. Meanwhile, the hometown favourite and SVG's Trackhouse Racing teammate Daniel Suarez, rounded out the top 10.