Shane van Gisbergen Is Nascar’s New Road Course King

Shane van Gisbergen is not just winning races at Nascar’s top level. He is putting on a clinic at road courses.

The New Zealander moved to America last year, less than a year after winning the inagural race at the Chicago Street Course in 2023. His deal with Trackhouse Racing came together in partnership with Kaulig Racing in the Xfinity Series. Quickly, he picked up a knack for oval racing. Shortly there after, Trackhouse bumped him up to the Cup Series.

Now, he’s a full-time Cup Series racer. While oval racing is still a work in progress for the 36-year-old, he is proving he may be the best Nascar racer to ever tackle road courses.

“Justin [Marks, Trackhouse Racing owner] took a massive chance on me to bring me over, and as I’ve said many times, these races are like a holiday to me. It’s the ovals where I’m really focused on getting better and better.

“I come here and there’s no stress. People probably think there’s more stress and expectation on us, but I kind of just get excited by it and love driving. It’s the ovals where I know I’m getting better. I’m not stressed about it and I’m not forcing it, but I love trying to progress and get better and better.

Van Gisbergen’s dominanting win during Sunday’s Grant Park 165 on the Chicago Street Course is his third Cup victory, making him the winningest foreign-born driver.

Previously, road courses were few and far between on the Nascar schedule. Until the schedule changed during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, there were usually only a pair of road course races at Sonoma and Watkins Glen, so it wasn’t an emphasis for drivers. But over the years, there were road course experts, such as Marcos Ambrose, Juan Pablo Montoya, Robby Gordon and others. A handful of full-timers also had a knack for road course racing, including Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Rusty Wallace.

But none had the raw ability to turn left and right like van Gisbergen, who is simply in a league of his own in the Next Gen era, which makes it even more difficult to stand out amongst the pack.

Van Gisbergen is – at the same time – making his competitors better road course racers, as he’s showing them how to max out everything in their racecars. The limits they previously thought were there can be stretched, as he’s proven.

During Sunday’s street course race, only Michael McDowell was able to actually give van Gisbergen a run for his money, leading the opening 31 laps.

What may be scary for the competition is that van Gisbergen believes Trackhouse Racing has room for improvement.

“I’m slowly starting to understand it, but there’s still some things we can be a lot better at,” van Gisbergen said. “But try again next week, and we can just keep trying to be better. We’re near in the position now where you have that playoff spot, you can take more risk. It’s been enjoyable figuring this car out and getting outside the box a little bit.”

The next Cup Series race is at another road course – Sonoma – a new track for the New Zealander.