Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cHi, mate. I hear you’re running 97, NASCAR Cup Series next year,\u201d Robert said in the video, which saw Shane get understandably teary-eyed. \u201cIt means so much to our family. Right from the beginning, both of us ran 97 in motocross. We both ran it in speedway. Mum (Karen) would have been absolutely trapped.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the years, 97 was the legacy in New Zealand and Australia in all forms of motorsport. So, so proud you’re running it in the USA. And also, even when you won national titles, where you\u2019re obliged to run number one, you still carried on 97. So proud, mate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shane, having taken a moment to collect himself, commented, \u201cYeah, that’s nice. The stuff he wrote about mum gets me, so, yeah.\u201d Karen tragically passed away aged 64 in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlown away by it,\u201d the 36-year-old Cup Series Rookie of the Year later said. \u201cTo be able to represent my number in NASCAR and hopefully people know me as 97 now.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for 19-year-old Zilisch, who is carrying over the No. 88 from his record-setting Xfinity Series season during which he also ran part-time in the Cup for Trackhouse, he commented on the Red Bull livery, \u201cIt\u2019s so cool to be driving No. 88 in the Cup Series. The number is historic and so many great drivers have driven it. I certainly have big shoes to fill but I can\u2019t wait to get the season started.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the blue streaks across the side of car. The dark matte blue allows the light blue streaks to pop. I\u2019m excited to have it on track next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2026 season will mark Zilisch\u2019s first full-time Cup Series campaign, making the move to replace Daniel Suarez after winning 10 Xfinity races in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Trackhouse Racing\u2019s owner, Justin Marks, recently teased an increase in its partnership with energy drink brand Red…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,9398,2332,634,1882,137754,9706,82,36954],"class_list":["post-307863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-connor-zilisch","tag-motorsport-section","tag-nascar","tag-red-bull","tag-red-bull-sponsorship","tag-shane-van-gisbergen","tag-sports","tag-trackhouse-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}