By David Morgan, Associate Editor
LEBANON, Tenn. – The road course ace is starting to figure out this oval stuff.
Continuing his steady progression on the ovals, Shane van Gisbergen, the road course terminator himself, looked as if he had been racing on circle tracks for a multitude of years on Sunday night at Nashville Superspeedway as he held his own against the best of the NASCAR Cup Series during the Cracker Barrel 400.
Starting the day in the top-10 after qualifying was washed out, the New Zealander made the most of his track position when the green flag dropped, keeping himself inside the top-10 for the majority of the night.
Midway through the first stage, van Gisbergen would put his No. 97 Chevrolet out front on three different occasions for a total of 12 laps, battling with the likes of Kyle Larson in the process.
When the race came down to a final four-lap dash to the finish, he would be put to the ultimate test in the top-10 amidst a pack of snarling dogs all fighting for the win.
He stood his ground over the course of that final run to the checkers, crossing the line in fifth-place, his best ever finish on an oval in his Cup Series career.
“Awesome race. It was really cool to lead for a bit. I had a really cool battle,” said van Gisbergen. “Yeah, the Tootsies Chevy was really good. It’s amazing. You start up front, your car feels so nice and then you go to the back on strategy and it just felt like a bucket of shit.
“So it was good getting strategy back and we got to the front again and yeah, it’s so good racing up front. You just get better and better and really enjoyed myself tonight.”
A day prior to Sunday’s race, van Gisbergen explained that he wasn’t confident that they were going to have a good run on Nashville’s concrete oval given the intricacies of the track’s unique surface, but after bringing home the run he did on Sunday night, he chalked it all up to just being able to put in the laps and keep learning as he went.
“It’s just more time. I got a little bit more comfort in the car, so I was able to move around with confidence, which I’ve never been able to do here before,” said van Gisbergen.
“I’m always sort of stuck to the bottom and sort of getting the second and third groove going in one and two and felt comfortable with that, which I’ve never been able to do before. So yeah, it is just experience. Coming back here I’ll be able to start at that level and just keep getting better and better.”
Van Gisbergen noted that there were some tense moments during the race when his Trackhouse Racing teammates Connor Zilisch and Ross Chastain both fell by the wayside with braking issues, but his team reassured him that he wouldn’t have been affected by those same brake rotor problems, setting his mind at ease and allowing him to get back in the fight.
“Yeah, definitely. Saw Connor first and then Ross next, and I said that on the radio. Wonder how long mine’s going to last, but they said my setup is a little bit different,” he explained. “My pedals started going bad in stage three, but I feel like that’s a Nashville thing. It’s always tough on brakes here and thankfully it lasted.”
Following Sunday’s top-five, van Gisbergen now sits 12th in the standings with two road course races coming up soon at San Diego and Sonoma, but he is also keeping focus on the ovals and adding to his knowledge base on those types of tracks as well.
“I try not to put too much weight on the road courses. I know we’ll be good there, but my focus is the ovals every week,” said van Gisbergen. “We know the road courses will be good for us, but yeah, I want to keep getting better at these ovals.”
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