By David Morgan, Associate Editor
CHICAGO – It’s Shane van Gisbergen’s world and we’re just living it.
From the start of the weekend in Chicago, the New Zealand born driver of the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet has been on another level, winning the pole for both the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series and following it up with a win in that Xfinity Series race.
Now he can add a second Chicago Street Race win to his resume as he took home the win on Sunday as well to sweep the weekend in the Windy City.
The victory is his second of the 2025 Cup Series season to go along with his triumph in Mexico City, further solidifying his standings in the Playoffs with two more road course races remaining in the regular season.
“I love this place,” said van Gisbergen after climbing from his car and executing his patented rugby kick into the grandstands. “What an amazing weekend for me. I’m a lucky guy to drive some great cars. Have to thank Trackhouse, WeatherTech, Chevy, and all these guys and girls here. What an amazing weekend. Thanks everyone for coming out. Hope we put on a good show.
“I guess we made no mistakes,” he added of what the difference was today. “There were some really fast cars, we just seemed to get it right, you know? Make no mistakes, be smooth every lap, really cool.”
He put on a show this weekend. 👏 pic.twitter.com/BpxVBP4xGr
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) July 6, 2025
Ty Gibbs brought his No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota home in second-place to post his best finish of the season, followed by Tyler Reddick in third, who is still looking for his first win of the year.
“We had a — my team called a great strategy and got me in position to get me up front to compete for the win,” said Gibbs. “It worked out for us today, so I’m glad to have a good finish, but we wish we could have gone for the win.”
Reddick noted afterwards that it was déjà vu from a year ago, having a tire advantage over the leaders in the closing laps, but just not having enough time to get there and having to settle for third.
“It’s truly hard to say how much the 88 was coasting there, but we were catching him at a pretty good pace, and I think with two or three to go he picked it up a little bit, and we were still faster. But obviously he had a 3-second gap there with two to go, so comfortably in front,” said Reddick.
“But it was nice to be able to restart 18th or so and even with the issues we had and the damage we got on the car, be able to drive back to third there. All in all, it was another really solid day for us here in Chicago.”
Denny Hamlin had to start at the tail end of the field due to a mechanical issue in practice on Saturday, but was able to charge his way to fourth in the final rundown, with Kyle Busch rounding out the top-five finishers.
The remainder of the top-10 went to A.J. Allmendinger, Ryan Preece, Alex Bowman, Austin Hill, and Ross Chastain.
When the green flag flew on the 75-lap race, Michael McDowell put up and early challenge to SVG’s expected dominance, leading the first 31 laps, but a broken throttle cable sidelined him from the race and he would end the day in 32nd place.
“The throttle cable just broke. I don’t know what caused it or how it got to that spot, but that’s what happened,” McDowell said of the issue that ended what had been a promising day to that point.
“I feel like we had control of the race. I think it would have been a battle, no doubt. I felt like any time I could open a gap on SVG, I could. We were just working on our strategy. We knew we were going to one-stop it, so I was taking care of the tires and doing all the things I could. I was behind the pace car and the throttle stuck wide-open.”
After McDowell’s issue, SVG was able to ascend to the lead and would only give it up as race strategy played out, with Chase Briscoe, Ryan Blaney, and Allmendinger all taking turns up front.
As the final stage got underway, van Gisbergen would restart in seventh place, methodically working his way back to the front.
By Lap 50, he was inside the top-five. Seven laps later, he climbed to the runner-up spot, setting his sights on the leader at the time, Chase Briscoe.
Van Gisbergen re-claimed the lead over Briscoe with 16 laps left on the board, shortly before the caution flag flew to stack the field back up behind him.
He would get away clean on that restart, having to endure another caution and restart just three laps later, after which he was also able to escape with the race lead.
As van Gisbergen held a steady lead over his competitors in the final run to the finish, a trio of Toyotas behind him, including Gibbs and Reddick, who charged forward with fresher tires, were looking for a chance to have one more shot at stealing the win away.
When Cody Ware crashed hard into the tire barrier in Turn 6, burying his No. 51 Ford, it looked as if that might be their chance, but the caution flag did not fly until after van Gisbergen had taken the white flag, making the race official and delivering the No. 88 team another win.
Hocevar Triggers Red Flag in Opening Laps
Sunday’s race would be slowed for caution on seven different occasions, four of which were for incident, with none bigger than an eight-car pileup on Lap 4 that would bring out the red flag.
The incident began when Carson Hocevar pounded the outside wall in Turn 11, spinning in front of the field and causing a chain reaction crash behind him when Austin Dillon collided with him and a number of other cars piled in shortly thereafter.
As a result, the track would be blocked and NASCAR would be forced to throw the red to untangle the mess on the city streets of Chicago.
A replay of the incident on Lap 4. pic.twitter.com/4aWkPLGi8U
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) July 6, 2025
In addition to Hocevar and Austin Dillon, the other drivers involved included Brad Keselowski, Daniel Suarez, Todd Gilliland, Will Brown, Riley Herbst, and A.J. Allmendinger.
“I didn’t see it until the last second,” Keselowski said afterwards. “I slowed down and I actually felt I was gonna get stopped and then I just kind of got ran over from behind. It’s just a narrow street course and sometimes there’s nowhere to go.”
“A car spun in front of us on the first lap and it ended our day before we could even get it started,” Dillon added. “It’s a shame and I’m just at a loss for words at this point. We’ll just keep bringing cars like this and hope our luck turns around for us at some point.”
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