Erebus set for exploratory NASCAR trip

Members from the in-form squad will travel to World Wide Technology Raceway for the Cup Series race on the first weekend in June.

There they will meet up with Richard Childress Racing through a "small affiliation" between the two squads to exchange ideas.

That affiliation has come through former Supercars engineer Andrew Dickinson who now works for RCR on Kyle Busch's car.

"We’re going over there in a few weeks to visit a team we’ve got a small affiliation with, so we’re doing a bit more research while we’re over there," Erebus CEO Barry Ryan explained.

"We have got a bit of an affiliation with [RCR] just through Andrew Dickinson. He’s one of the engineers of Kyle Busch’s car. He used to work for [Super2 team owner] Terry Wyhoon, so we went there last year for the Darlington race. I saw [Martin Truex Jr's crew chief] James Small as well of course, I’m good mates with James.

"The boys at RCR are good. Richard Childress really wants to come out here, he has never been to Australia so I’m trying to get him over here. He just missed out on coming to Adelaide last year.

"It’s great to go there and just see how they do it. We might not get much out of it, but a professional team like that, surely we can learn something.

"Obviously road course stuff is really important to them so if they can help out their drivers on road course stuff, well it could be a good thing for them as well.

"That’s the way we’re looking at it; to see if our drivers can show them something on turning right as well as left, because in NASCAR you have just got to win a race to get into the chase, so it’s really important for the road course stuff."

News of the Erebus trip follows confirmation that Shane van Gisbergen will make his NASCAR debut with Trackhouse Racing on the Chicago street course in July.

Erebus drivers, and current Supercars points leader, Brodie Kostecki has also expressed his desire to run a partial NASCAR programme alongside his Supercars commitments.

The West Aussie has a background in tarmac oval racing and is known to be open to adding races in the States to supplement the somewhat thin 12-round Supercars season.

That is something Ryan is open to and willing to help facilitate, although says finalising a deal will ultimately be up to Kostecki.

“A lot of that is Brodie’s business to do," he said. "If we can introduce him to the right people…

"He already knows a lot of people over there. The Richard Childress thing, like I said, is through Andrew so it’s more a friendship at the moment, but they’ve shown interest in Brodie, especially with how he is performing now and they know his history.

"Supercars is the priority but anything you can learn, and if the drivers can race every weekend they’re going to get better, so we encourage it as much as we can.

"Brodie races nearly every day on the sim – it’s as good as racing so I think that’s why he has gone to another level. He has just really focused on that this year and so is Will [Brown]. Will bought a sim. They’re both racing and practicing and qualifying constantly."