#van gislaughlin

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: No, I didn't say I was looking into it.

Q. But you want to go.

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I don't think I'm allowed doing that, but I enjoy watching it. I enjoy gambling on it. It's a lot of fun.

Q. Would you want to go if you were allowed?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: There's no weight restriction, so I feel like I'm already at a disadvantage. There's no weight -- like Santino is 120 pounds. I'm 185. And I don't know how to drive on dirt. I would like to for sure. I think the experience would be cool. But I'm pretty certain I'll be like in the end, man.

Q. If Shane asked you, would you?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I would go if he goes. But I don't think I would be allowed. The minute I was a sprint car owner a few years ago, Roger said, don't get any ideas, so I didn't. So I just watch.

Q. This was something you and I spoke about in Daytona but I think it's important to get in front of this room. Your name is always brought up with NASCAR. I think you would want to try it but it wouldn't be a full-time thing, right?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: No, I don't really have much of an interest of going full time in NASCAR. I love INDYCAR racing, and I love being a part of this sport.

You never say never for sure, but at the end of the day, I'm so focused on what I'm doing here in INDYCAR that until success happens and until things happen or I'm satisfied, then I don't really see much on the outside.

But from a full-time perspective, no. I think if I was Connor Zilisch's age and something came, maybe would I think about it? Yeah. But now I'm 32 years old and got a kid at home, and I don't know if I'm interested in being away 38 weekends a year. That's just a personal choice.

Not that I disagree with any of those guys. It's just they've grown up doing that all the time, Blaneys, Bubbas, all those guys who are great friends of mine.

But right now I came over here to INDYCAR because I wanted to be a part of the 500 and the lifestyle of racing 18, 20 weekends, and I'm excited about that. Q. To follow up on what you said about NASCAR, one of the tracks that would have likely been the place where you would have gotten a test or an opportunity, the Roval. They're not even going to use it anymore. They're going back to the oval. Does that even diminish the possibility of you ever competing in one of those races anyway?

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I don't know. I don't know.

Q. It would have been easy because you live in Charlotte and it's at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, but planes are a wonderful thing, too. I can fly. But yeah, I don't know. Look, we've been -- we've joked about it. He's like, Van Gisbergen is going well; we know you could have a crack with him. I know that Roger would like to see me do it and whatever and people always hassle him and stuff, but ultimately we've got so much here to work on.

Yeah, I'm just very happy doing what I'm doing right now. Honestly, yes, if he came to me tomorrow and said, do you want to do a NASCAR race, I would do it because I just love racing. I would race a fucking wheelbarrow if I could; you know what I mean? So I don't care. But I love the sport. I love being a part of it, and we'll see how we go.

shane van gisbergen and scott mclaughlin, two kiwis who drove for rival australian v8 supercars teams and won three championships apiece (shane in '16 '21 '22 and scotty in '18 '19 '20)...aussie media made quite a lot of their personal rivalry which wasn't exactly the case altho it did indeed sometimes get heated and they couldn't exactly stay friends of course. anyway scotty escaped the toxic paddock to the US to try his hand at indycars and it went/is going very well! shane followed him stateside a few years later, altho into nascar and has said that scotty telling him how much happier he is over here and how good the racing culture was a major factor in why he took the plunge. i personally got incredibly invested when they did the rolex 24 together this year and they started opening up about what it's been like to reignite their relationship and hang out more often and do stuff like racing just for fun like they always wanted. and this has been an especially exciting week or so because they're racing a fun little weekday summer series in north carolina together in what's effectively the nascar version of karting (a poor analogy but close enough).

basically, take any friends to enemies pairing you can imagine and write a fix-it reconciliation epilogue. that's literally what's happening