{"id":269932,"date":"2025-11-08T00:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T00:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/269932\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T00:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T00:42:10","slug":"nascar-news-shane-van-gisbergen-to-run-iconic-number-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/269932\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR news: Shane van Gisbergen to run iconic number in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/SVG-97-announcement.jpg\" alt=\"SVG brought to tears by Trackhouse number announcement\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tShane van Gisbergen cried as he read a letter out from his father.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/speedcafe.com\/nascar-news-2025-connor-zilisch-confirmed-trackhouse-racing-cup-series-2026-teammate-svg-shane-van-gisbergen\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The arrival of Connor Zilisch to the team<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/speedcafe.com\/nascar-news-2025-cup-series-trackhouse-racing-confirms-daniel-suarez-split-replacement-connor-zilisch-update-shane-van-gisbergen\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">replacing Daniel Suarez<\/a>, will see the teenager carry #88 next year. Ross Chastain will remain in the #1 Chevrolet Camaro.<\/p>\n<p>Van Gisbergen welled up as he read a letter written by his father Robert, talking about the significance of the number.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Cheese\u2019 carried #97 in rally and dirt speedway racing. SVG continued the family\u2019s legacy and enjoyed all of his Supercars success with the number, quickly becoming synonymous with it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s awesome to carry a car number that is so special to me,\u201d said van Gisbergen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Justin offered me the opportunity to change to the #97, it was pretty special.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a number that means a lot to my family and me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy dad used it in his racing career, so when I started racing, I wanted to use it too, and then basically I\u2019ve used the #97 in everything since.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve had many special moments with that number and it\u2019s cool to get the opportunity to create even more in the Cup Series.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trackhouse Racing produced a view to announce the number change, with letters written from influential people in the lives of the three drivers.<\/p>\n<p>Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks wrote a letter addressed to Chastain, while Dale Earnhardt wrote about Zilisch continuing the legacy of the #88 that NASCAR\u2019s most popular driver of the 2000s raced with.<\/p>\n<p>Van Gisbergen, meanwhile, had a letter written by his father, <a href=\"https:\/\/speedcafe.com\/van-gisbergen-pays-tribute-to-late-mother\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in which he mentioned his late mother, Karen Wallace, who sadly passed away in 2024.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat means so much to our family,\u201d Robert wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight from the beginning, both of us ran #97 in motocross, we both ran it in speedway. Mum would have been absolutely proud.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver the years, #97 was the legacy in New Zealand and Australia in all forms of motorsport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo proud you\u2019re running it in the USA. And, also, even when you won national titles, when you\u2019re obliged to run #1 you still carried on #97. So proud, mate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\">For more of the latest NASCAR news stories, visit <a href=\"https:\/\/motorracing.com\/nascar\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MotorRacing.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane van Gisbergen cried as he read a letter out from his father. The arrival of Connor Zilisch&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,955,9909,12357,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-269932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-nascar","15":"tag-shane-van-gisbergen","16":"tag-slot1","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}