Shane van Gisbergen has enjoyed plenty of success in the world of motorsport, but he is far from ready to pump the brakes on his illustrious career.

The New Zealand driver has set his sights on winning the Daytona 24 Hour endurance race scheduled to be staged in January 2025.

The three-time Supercars champion is hoping to capitalise on a unique opportunity involving his partner Jessica Dane to book a spot in the iconic event.

His seamless transition from Supercars to NASCAR has been a game-changer for his illustrious career, and his story only gets more compelling with every turn.

Van Gisbergen Dreaming of Daytona Success

The Kiwi first revealed his interest in competing at Daytona on the Apex Hunters United podcast, where he admitted he has been hounding his partner for a spot in the prestigious event.

The experienced racer has a deep connection with Daytona. He first competed in the event in 2014 with Alex Job Racing in a Porsche 911GT3 Cup car.

He became a regular fixture at the event until 2017, when he took a short break, but he returned in 2020 with Vasser Sullivan behind the wheel of a Lexus RC F GT3.

His partner Dane is set to ditch her role at GM Motorsports to join Corvette Racing as their programme manager, where she'll oversee global GT3 operations with the Corvette Z06.

Her new role comes as a massive boost for Van Gisbergen’s hopes of landing a spot at Daytona, making his long-term ambitions more feasible than ever.

The race is now only an hour away from his base in the United States - a far cry from the arduous 28-hour journey he had to face when moving from New Zealand to Florida.

If Van Gisbergen participates at Daytona, sports bettors in his homeland will be clamouring to wager on him given his previous successes in motorsports.

Most New Zealand betting sites offer comprehensive coverage of motorsports events and the Kiwi star’s involvement at Daytona would spike massive interest among punters.

Van Gisbergen is a symbol of national pride in New Zealand and his proven track record makes him an enticing proposition for sports bettors.

Xfinity Car was an Eye-Opener for Van Gisbergen

While Van Gisbergen still has one eye on a dream spot at Daytona 2025, he is still coming to terms with a transformative year in NASCAR.

Shifting from his familiar Cup car to the Xfinity Series has been quite the experience for the Kiwi driver, who likened his Chevrolet Camaro to a forklift truck.

He raised plenty of eyebrows when he won his debut race in the NASCAR Cup Series in July, making a smooth transition into the Next-Gen car. The Xfinity car was a different ball-game.

"I like the Cup car because it feels like every other car in the world I've driven," he said. "Then I got in the Xfinity car and had no idea what was happening.

"It drives like a forklift, the way the rear end moves, how it drives but if you speak to drivers here, they like it better.

“The rear end is really, really interesting, how it moves around. I've never driven a car like that."

Van Gisbergen Could Face a Familiar Rival in 2025

Van Gisbergen could face a familiar rival in the United States next season, with 2024 Supercars champion Will Brown set to tackle some NASCAR races.

Both drivers are familiar with each other from racing in Australia. But it may not be long until they renew hostilities, with Brown seriously considering a move to NASCAR.

Brown secured the 2024 Supercars championship title from in a Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, claiming only his ninth win in 124 race starts for Triple Eight Race Engineering.

After an unsatisfactory Cup series debut, Brown has set his sights on returning to NASCAR for the upcoming season, setting the stage for a mouth-watering showdown against SVG.

"Hopefully, two NASCAR races I'd like to do," Brown said. "That's the plan. I'll say one, but hopefully, two if the car is available.

"I guess Chicago's one I want to do, but a lot of the guys over there want to do it, so if a car's available and a team's available, I’ll do it.”

The Hall of Fame Season (as we like to call November to early February) is in full swing with the significant announcement that Dick Allen and Dave Parker has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Classic Baseball Era Committee.  That specific group looked at the period from Baseball’s beginning to 1980.

Parker received 14 votes, and Allen received 13.  Twelve votes were needed (75%) were required to enter Cooperstown.

Dave Parker:  Parker led Pittsburgh to a World Series Championship in 1979 and won a second ring a decade later with Oakland.  A six-time All-Star with three Silver Sluggers, Parker won the 1978 National League MVP.  He had 339 career Home Runs and 1,493 RBIs.  Previously, Parker’s best finish on his previous three Veteran’s Ballots was 43.8% in 2020.  Parker is 73 years old.

Dick Allen:   Allen finally got in on his sixth try on a Veteran’s ballot after falling short by one vote the last two attempts (2015 & 2022).  Allen was the 1972 American League MVP (with Chicago). Over a 15-year career, he hit 351 Home Runs with 1,119 RBIs. He was also a seven-time All-Star, two-time OBP leader, three-time Slugging Champion, and four-time leader in OPS.

Tommy John received seven votes, and the other five nominees (Ken Boyer, John Donaldson, Steve Garvey, Vic Harris, and Luis Tiant) failed to receive at least five votes and their finish was not published.

Parker and Allen will be joined by the former players who will advance on the Baseball Writer’s Modern Ballot.

Regular visitors of Notinhalloffame.com know that we are slowly working on the top 50 of every major team in the NHL, NBA, NFL, and MLB. Once that is done, we will examine how each team honors its past players, coaches, and executives. As such, it is important to us that the Tampa Bay Lightning have selected Brian Bradley and Rick Peckham to their franchise Hall of Fame.

Bradley and Peckham join Martin St. Louis, Vincent Lecavalier, Phil Esposito, Brad Richards, and Dave Andreychuk.  The other six Finalists were Henry Paul, Jay Feaster, Pavel Kubina, Nikolai Khabibulin, Ben Bishop, and Ryan Callahan.

Bradley was an original member of the Lightning, having been drafted by the Lighting in the 1992 Expansion Draft.  Joining the new squad at 28, Bradley, who had never scored 50 Points in a season, exploded for 86 in Tampa’s inaugural year and went to his first All-Star Game.  He was an All-Star again the year after and had two more 60-plus Point campaigns with the Bolts.  Overall, Bradley compiled 300 Points in 328 Games in Tampa Bay.

Peckham was the play-by-play broadcaster for the Hartford Whalers from 1984 to 1995 and became Tampa Bay’s lead voice from 1995 to 2020.  He earned the prestigious Foster Hewitt Memorial Award in 2020.

We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to congratulate the impending members of the Tampa Bay Lightning Hall of Fame.

1970 SEMI-FINAL RESULTS:

Thank you for all of your participation in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Project. If you are unaware of what that is, we acted like the PFHOF had its first class in January 1946.

We have completed the years up to 1968.

For “1970,” a Preliminary Vote with nearly 100 players whose playing career ended by 1961. We are also following the structure in that players have 20 years of eligibility, and if they do not make it into the Hall, they are relegated to the Senior Pool.

Each voter was asked to select 25 names from the preliminary list, and the top 25 vote-getters were named Semi-Finalists.

A week later, the voters were asked to pick 15 names from the 25 Semi-Finalists, and next week, they will pick five from the remaining 15. We will continue this process weekly until we catch up to the current year.

31 Votes took place, with the top fifteen advancing.

This is for the “Modern Era”

Bold indicates they advanced to the Finals:

This is for the “Senior Era”

*Bold indicates they advanced to the Finals:

This is for the “Senior Era”

*Bold indicates they advanced to the Finals:

We will post the Class of the 1970 Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Project next Saturday.

Thank you to all who contributed. If you want to be part of this project, please let us know!