The Kiwi strikes again at another Chicago Street Race.
Shane van Gisbergen grabbed his third win of the 2024 season at The Loop 110 after making another dominant drive on the Chicago street course and making the pass for the win on Jesse Love with two laps to go. He pulled away to win by 1.287 seconds over Ty Gibbs in the three-lap dash to the checkered flag.
“What a great race,” van Gisbergen said to NBC. “It was pretty wild right there at the end. I can’t thank the Kaulig guys enough. The Weather Tech Camaro was amazing. Great racing to start with Kyle. He was really good on the restart. We made are car better on the second set of tires, but whew! That was fun at the end passing all those guys had some great racing with everyone.”
Kyle Larson crossed the line third, and Parker Kligerman drove from the back of the field to finish fourth. Love completed the top five.
Connor Mosack, Austin Hill, Joey Logano, Justin Allgaier and Austin Green finished out the top 10.
Van Gisbergen, the polesitter, and Larson battled from the opening lap. The two swapped the lead multiple times in the opening green flag run, with van Gisbergen giving Larson an approving thumbs up during their confrontation.
“We were waving at each other, thumbs up and really respectful, but big moves,” van Gisbergen said. “He was amazing under brakes and on the bumps.”
After the day’s first caution for debris from the No. 26 Toyota of Sage Karam, Larson got by van Gisbergen. However, on the final lap of stage one, van Gisbergen drew even with Larson on the outside of turn six and completed the pass in turn seven to win stage one.
Gibbs, Mosack and Cole Custer filled out the stage one top five.
The two dueling leaders of Larson and van Gisbergen were briefly joined by AJ Allmendinger in third, but the driver of the No. 16 Chevrolet wheel-hopped in turn six and slammed into the tire barriers to bring out the second caution. Allmendinger would recover to finish 11th.
Larson and van Gisbergen came down for their only stop of the day on Lap 24. Hill took the lead on the lap 26 restart and pulled away from Sammy Smith for the stage two victory.
Love, Allgaier and Creed made up the top five for stage two.
Love gained the lead off the stage three restart over his RCR teammate Hill and held off Gibbs, but the yellow flag flew moments later for an incident in the back of the field in turn 11 involving Parker Retzlaff, Karam, Kyle Sieg, Josh Bilicki and others.
Love fended off two other restarts from Gibbs and Hill as van Gisbergen marched his way to the front, but out of turn 12, he got into the inside wall and lost a lot of time to the top two and had to defend third from Mayer and Creed.
A caution for Leland Honeyman barreling into the turn one tire barrier with six to go negated the lost time, giving van Gisbergen one more opportunity to pass the two, and he made quick work of both Gibbs and Love to take the lead with three laps left and pull away for the win.
Despite a lackluster day and finishing 18th, Custer remained the points leader by 38 points over Allgaier and 39 points over Chandler Smith, who finished last in 38th with and early engine failure.
Despite Custer’s lead of the points, van Gisbergen attained the rights to the No. 1 seed of the playoffs by way of his six earned playoff points.
Xfinity Chicago Results
The Xfinity Series will head to the hills of Pocono for the Explore the Pocono Mountains 225 on Saturday, July 13 at 3 p.m. ET. The television broadcast will be provided by USA Network.
About the author
Wyatt Watson has followed NASCAR closely since 2007. He joined Frontstretchas a journalist in February 2023 after serving in the United States Navy for five years as an Electronic Technician Navigation working on submarines. Wyatt writes breaking NASCAR news and contributes to columns such as Friday Faceoff and 2-Headed Monster. Wyatt also contributes to Frontstretch's social media and serves as an at-track reporter, collecting exclusive content for Frontstretch.
Wyatt Watson can be found on Twitter @WyattGametime
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