Trackhouse Racing put together a video announcing the car number for each its of 2026 Cup Series drivers. The team is putting aside its original number, the No. 99, which Daniel Suarez drove for five seasons before parting ways with the organization at the end of this year.
Unsurprisingly, Ross Chastain will continue to pilot the No. 1 he has driven to all six of Cup victories, including the 2025 Coca-Cola 600. Rookie Connor Zilisch will take over the No. 88 from Shane van Gisbergen, who won five Cup races with the number this past year. The historic number was also used by Zilisch himself in the Xfinity Series, winning ten races before a tough loss in the NASCAR Xfinity title fight.
As the team announced each driver/number pairing, the drivers were presented a letter to inform them of the news. Chastain’s was from team founder Justin Marks, Zilisch’s was from Dale Earnhardt Jr., while Shane van Gisbergen’s letter was from his father, Robert.
SVG got emotional as he read through it, learning that he would be driving the No. 97 in the Cup Series next year. A teary-eyed van Gisbergen couldn’t even read it aloud as his father talked about the importance of that car number to their family. Both Robert and Shane drove it throughout their careers, and SVG won all three of his Supercars titles with it. He also used it in the Xfinity Series during the 2024 season.
“That means so much to our family,” his father said. “Right from the beginning, both of us ran #97 in motocross, we both ran it in speedway. Mom would have been absolutely proud.”
Wiping away tears, van Gisbergen explained that reading his father’s words about his mother, who passed away in early 2024, really got to him. But the written word simply does not do it justice. You can see the video in full right here:
This will also be the fifth different number van Gisbergen has driven in his brief NASCAR Cup career. He started in the No. 91 with that incredible win on debut, drove both the No. 13 and No. 16 for Kaulig in Cup, and then the No. 88 for Trackhouse this past season.
As for the No. 97, it has its own history in the NASCAR world. Since the 2013 season, the car number has been mostly absent from the grid, used just three times in 2018. But before that, the number had started almost 700 races, winning 17 of them, and Kurt Busch even drove the #97 to the 2004 NASCAR Cup Series championship.
While the elder Busch brother is responsible for most of its success, Parnelli Jones and Bill Amick also won with the No. 97.
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