Kobayashi Will Be Living His Nascar Dream While Showcasing 23XI On A Global Stage

Sunday is just another race in a long season for the NASCAR Cup series. Race number 24 in a 36-race season that started back at Daytona in February. The series heads to the road course at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend. And the field will be stacked with not only NASCAR’s superstars, but stars from around the world.

Australian Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen who won NASCAR’s Chicago street race in July will be joined by fellow Supercars driver Brodie Kostecki. Also announced this week, two-time Le Mans winner, Mike Rockenfeller will be driving the No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Chevrolet in place of a suspended Noah Gragson. And Jenson Button.

All those drivers have NASCAR experience; van Gisbergen won at Chicago, Kostecki made 16 starts in what is now called the ARCA Menards Series East from 2013-14 and Button was part of NASCAR’s Garage 56 Project at Le Mans, and this weekend will be his third career series start in the Cup Series.

One driver hopes to make his NASCAR debut Sunday, but he has no NASCAR experience. 23XI Racing will be fielding a third car this weekend and piloting the No. 67 Toyota will be Kamui Kobayashi from Amagasaki, Japan. The 35-year-old journeyman driver has raced in Formula 1, Formula E, IMSA and is currently a driver and team principal with the Toyota Gazoo Racing Team in the World Endurance Championship, where he has two titles.

Even after all those accomplishments, Kobayashi has always wanted to race in NASCAR, he was just looking for the chance.

“I’ve been asking (Isaka Kanazawa, a senior manager at Toyota) so many times (for) this opportunity,” Kobayashi said laughing. “He never gives me the opportunity.”

Kobayashi joked that he’s been telling Isaka:

“Yes, if you offer me yes, I will do it,” Kobayashi said.

“And I give only 10 minutes to decide yes or not and he has to answer yes in 10 minutes,” he added laughing.

“So I think I made his life shorter.”

In reality the idea came from Kobayashi and got the enthusiastic support of David Wilson group vice president and president of Toyota Racing Development the division that oversees the company’s NASCAR efforts.

To bring the idea to the track Toyota reached out to 23XII Racing to field the car. It was a no-brainer for the team who needed to only work on getting the car ready for the effort without concern over sponsorship.

“I think it just shows the kind of partners that Toyota are number one and really all of the partners at 2311,” said Steve Lauletta 23XI Racing’s president. “You know we’re trying to do a lot in a short amount of time.

“We’re only two and a halfish years old as a brand and we like to push ourselves and take advantage of things that that puts our team on a bigger stage.

“And obviously with Kamui’s motorsports lineage, with his connection to Toyota, you know the fan base he has around the world and in Japan they will put our brand on a big stage.”

This isn’t the first time they’ve fielded a third car. For this year’s Daytona 500 they put together an effort for Travis Pastrana who raced alongside their fulltime drivers Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace.

The Pastrana effort came at the season opening race. After this weekend’s race, however, there will be only two more until the 16-car field for this year’s Playoffs is set. Having won on the road course at the Circuit of the Americas in March, Reddick is guaranteed a spot. Wallace, however, is 15^th, one above the cutoff to make the field, and without a win hasn’t yet officially secured a spot.

Lauletta said the team isn’t worried about the third car effort causing a distraction.

“As an organization, with another road course superstar being out there,” he said. “We think Tyler has proven himself as a road course superstar and Bubba’s getting much better and continues to get better.

“We just felt like it would help the overall program in the long run and knowing that we were confident it wasn’t going to take any focus away or be a distraction; we decided that we would jump in and see what happens this weekend.”

The opportunity to showcase Kobayashi on NASCAR’s stage to the world in a 23XI Racing car is something the team feels is part of what they are trying to do from a strategic perspective to its current sponsors, and potential ones as well.

“The sponsors, the partners that we have, they’re interested in being part of this team because of what the brand stands for, what we stand for on the racetrack, but also what we stand for off the racetrack,” Lauletta said. “And I think when you do something like this it shows our current partners and potential partners that we’re trying new things, we’re disruptive.

“Not only do we want the core NASCAR fan to be following and interested in 2311, but we want that general sports fan, that younger fan, that international fan.”

As for the effort attracting interest from an international sponsor, perhaps even from Japan:

“I don’t know that” he said. “It would be great if it did, but it certainly brings attention to the team that hopefully will provide social media, engagement, PR stories… those are all the things that we hope provide additional value to 2311 and then gets passed along to our sponsors.”

As Shane van Gisbergen demonstrated in Chicago in July, a first timer with no NASCAR experience can indeed win at NASCAR’s higher level.

“Actually, I think SVG did an amazing job in Chicago,” Kobayashi said. “So I think (the) expectation is very high.”

“So, I’m really pissed off about that,” he added chuckling.

No matter the outcome for Kamui Kobayashi this weekend, he will be living a dream, racing in the sport that first got his attention as a child. It was NASCAR that first got the attention of the 4-year-old when he saw the sport racing on an oval.

“I don’t know Formula One,” he said. “I have no idea what other motorsports are but just I say ‘well that’s a cool race car and I want to race this race.’”

And while he’s been racing all over the world the NASCAR dream has always been there.

“I’ve had a lot of you know experience,” he said. “But still I was dreaming to race in NASCAR one day.”

That day is here and no matter the outcome Kamui Kobayashi and 23XI Racing will be winners.