After spending years racing each other in the Australian Supercars arena, Shane van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin are now preparing for their first battle on American soil. The drivers will be racing US Legend Cars in the Cook Out Summer Shootout Series at the Charlotte Motor Speedway on weeknights across June and July.
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Van Gisbergen posted images of the cars that they will be piloting on social media and wrote, “Going to have some fun in the legends this summer!” The cars will be presented under the ‘Team SSR’ banner and will be run by Joe Ryan Race Cars. Notably, the cars have numbers that the drivers used in Supercars (van Gisbergen’s No. 97 and McLaughlin’s No. 33).
Van Gisbergen’s post drew reactions from multiple drivers and fans. His Trackhouse Racing teammate, Daniel Suarez, wrote, “I can’t believe you fit in that thing!! I was thinking of a convertible for you mate.”
Meanwhile, the young Craftsman Truck Series driver Rajah Caruth wrote, “Sick!!!!!” Safe to say, he sounded pretty impressed with the scaled-down machines.
A fan responded, “So, we spent all those years watching you two duke it out against each other for yall to team in, *checks notes*, Summer Shootout? Here for it, let me subscribe to the Patreon.”
Another added, “We need @smclaughlin93 in a NASCAR Cup car for a wildcard appearance, does the Mexico race clashes with any Indycar racing? Because that would be awesome!!”
The rivalry of a lifetime between van Gisbergen and McLaughlin
Throughout the 2010s, these two drivers dominated the Supercars scene by raking in multiple championships between them. Between 2013 and 2020, they’d faced each other in around 250 races. McLaughlin won 56 of them and van Gisbergen won 37 of them. The former won three championships in this period and the 2019 Bathurst.
Van Gisbergen, on the other hand, won the 2016 championship and the 2020 Bathurst. Fans and industry experts argue long over who among them is the bigger icon of the sport and still reach no conclusion. Perhaps this latest venture of theirs might help settle the argument. The Summer Shootout is a grassroots-level series that acts as a stepping stone for youngsters.
Summer is about to be electric with these 2 @smclaughlin93 @shanevg97 pic.twitter.com/LWs0UIzahG
— Bubba Wallace (@BubbaWallace) May 29, 2025
Notably, Bubba Wallace is a graduate of the same. He returned to the series in 2024 and appears set to do so again in 2025. McLaughlin and van Gisbergen have spoken a lot about how they’ve forged a friendship after transitioning to life in the United States, with their Supercars careers behind them. Fans will be eager to see where this takes them next.
