The 2021 Le Mans 24 Hours winner and team principal of Toyota's WEC arm was announced on Wednesday at La Sarthe for a one-off NASCAR outing at the Indianapolis road course in August, driving a third 23XI Racing Camry.
Kobayashi will take over the #67 car previously driven by Travis Pastrana to an 11th place finish at the Daytona 500 for his first outing in a stock car, following in the footsteps of fellow ex-Formula 1 racers Kimi Raikkonen, Daniil Kvyat and Jenson Button who have all made Cup debuts in the last 12 months.
Joining Toyota Racing Development USA president David Wilson on stage, Kobayashi revealed that he "was for a long time" searching for the right opportunity to go stock car racing as "actually my memory, [the] first racing on TV was actually NASCAR".
"When I was like four or five years old. I said, 'wow, that's cool!'" he said.
"And the first time when I raced a go-kart, honestly I didn't know Formula 1.
"What I saw when I was really young was a NASCAR race, because it was an oval. And I remember thinking one day to race in NASCAR was my dream."
Even after his F1 career, which yielded a single podium from 75 race starts between 2009 and 2014, Kobayashi found that his NASCAR dream remained in the back of his mind.
He repeatedly asked Wilson for an opportunity, which yielded a simulator try-out on the virtual Bristol oval.
"I always keep saying, 'I want to try' and finally [we] made it happen," he added.
Source: Autosport