It’s early in the weekend but Australian Supercars points leader Will Brown very much looks capable of pulling a Shane Van Gisbergen this weekend at Sonoma Raceway and winning in his NASCAR Cup Series debut.
The 26-year-old, who drives for Triple Eight Race Engineering in Oz, was third fastest in practice for Toyota/Save Mart 350 in a No. 33 out of the Richard Childress Racing stable. It wasn’t just the fast lap he laid down on his 20th lap but also the immediate comfort he showed driving the NASCAR NextGen car.
It’s a movie everyone saw almost a year ago when Van Gisbergen made his Cup Series debut on the Streets of Chicago, was fastest in practice, third in qualifying and went on to win the race in a career altering performance.
And that performance is also the only reason Brown is in California racing in the Cup Series this weekend.
“I think for a lot of Australians, it wasn’t that we didn’t love watching NASCAR, but we probably didn’t think it was possible to get a team to look at us and give us the opportunity to drive in NASCAR. After Shane did that, it’s opened up some doors.
“A lot of Aussies have paid a lot of attention to NASCAR now and I’m pretty excited to come over and have a go. I was lucky enough to put a deal together with Richard (Childress). We were able to have him out to Australia at the end of last year, and yeah, made that connection.
“I didn’t think I’d be in this position a year ago, so it’s pretty exciting.”
Like Van Gisbergen, Brown has had to make subtle adjustments to his craft, even with a car that shares similarities to the platform he has raced the past five seasons. That includes right hand shifting and simulator time at the expense of real-time practice.
But Brown was able to get two extra simulator sessions this week, piggybacking off Austin Dillon’s allotted time and using the entirety of Kyle Busch’s time while he was in Indianapolis for a Goodyear tire test in advance of the Brickyard 400.
“That’s something we don’t use back at home,” Brown said. “There are no simulators. We can use a cheaper sort of one in our house, but we don’t have that sort of facility or infrastructure. It was cool to get on it. I think we had a really good simulator session…the last time on Wednesday, and I seem to know the track pretty well.”
He certainly showed it in practice with his third-place overall speed but he immediately tempered expectations in an interview on the broadcast.
“I have to give credit to the (Chevrolet) simulator getting me up to speed here,” Brown said. “The guys back home at Australia race hard and these cars are very similar as well. I felt good entering the weekend. I’ve watched a lot of what SVG is doing every week and have worked with him a lot and he’s spotting for me.
“We have a long way to go still, a lot of learning to do and we’ll see how it goes tomorrow.”
Let’s see if he, like SVG, can qualify near the front and add a lot more intrigue to this weekend.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.