Supercars star Will Brown explains how important sim time was ahead of Cup Series debut at Sonoma

The Supercars takeover is in full effect for the NASCAR Cup Series in Sonoma. Will Brown is hoping to be the next SVG! Could we see Brown win in his Cup debut tomorrow?

The NASCAR Cup Series still has to qualify later today. However, based on practice already there is a name to watch – Will Brown.

Last year at the Chicago Street Race, Shane van Gisbergen won in his debut. Now, the guy who replaced him at Triple Eight Racing in Australia is trying to find some of that magic for himself.

“Really lucky when I came out three weeks ago, I got you know an hour in the sim,” Brown said in a press conference, via Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports. “So, that was good just to familiarize myself with this track I’ve never seen it before, hadn’t driven it before that. This week I was able to piggyback off the end of Austin [Dillon]’s session and get an hour there and with Kyle [Busch] doing the test at one of the tracks I was able to get his whole sim session.

“So, that’s something we don’t use back at home for drivers. There’s no simulators. We can use a cheaper sort of one in our house but we don’t have that same sort of facility or infrastructure. It was cool to get on it, I think we had a really good sim session on the last day on Wednesday and yeah, seem to know the track pretty well.”

Shane van Gisbergen opened up a door that cannot be closed. A Pandora’s Box full of Supercars racers looking to hit it big in NASCAR. It isn’t like it is easy, there is a lot more to NASCAR racing than just road courses – most of it is more than road courses, in fact.

What SVG has shown drivers like Will Brown is that they can at least compete. Ovals are hard to learn. But that doesn’t mean it is impossible. Marcos Ambrose crawled so SVG could walk. Could we now see Brown run, in the proverbial sense?

P3 in practice is very good in a driver’s debut. Now he has to do his best to make it translate to the race. Losing focus or making one mistake can cost you a ton in the Cup Series.

Fellow Supercars star Cam Waters did not do as well in the practice session. Brown is representing Richard Childress Racing with Waters suiting up for RFK. Qualifying will tell us a lot more in just a few hours.