Shane van Gisbergen has done it again.
The New Zealander and driver of the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet led 97 of 110 laps in a dominant display of road course prowess to win the Toyota/SaveMart 350 on Sunday (July 13). It marks SVG’s third win of 2025, his third straight triumph on a road course, and the fourth victory of his Cup Series career.
No one on the field could consistently compete with van Gisbergen, but it was not for a lack of effort. In particular, teams utilized pit strategy to try and neutalize van Gisbergen’s advantage.
Chase Elliott Nearly Rallies on Fresh Tires
On lap 96, Cody Ware lost his right rear wheel in turn 3A of the 11-turn road course, bringing out the fourth caution of the afternoon.
For teams up and down pit road, it presented one final opportunity to strategize in an attempt to chase down van Gisbergen. About half of the lead lap cars came down pit road for four tires and fuel on lap 97, led by Chase Elliott, who pitted from third. Elliott also wound up being the first car off of pit road in that group, restarting 17th.
The field got back up to speed with 11 laps remaining. If the race went green, Elliott and the others on fresh tires could give van Gisbergen a run for his money. The problem is that the race did not stay under green conditions. Two more cautions in rapid succession slowed the field as well as the progress of those new Goodyear Eagles.
First, a multi-car accident on lap 100 left Noah Gragson stopped in turn 7 with significant damage, resulting in the race’s fifth caution.
After a few more laps behind the pace car, the green flag waved again on lap 104, only for the yellow to come back out later that same lap when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. hit the tire barrier near turn 8 at the start of the esses.
Therefore, instead of an 11-lap run to the finish, the final restart happened with just four laps left. That was not enough time for Elliott to catch van Gisbergen, though he did rally from 10th back to third in those final four laps.
Despite not getting to the front, Elliott’s crew chief Alan Gustafson still made the right call to bring Elliott down pit road. As fast as van Gisbergen has been on road courses, the No. 9 team was not going to win the race doing the same thing strategy-wise as the No. 88. If those last two cautions don’t come out, the closing laps might have played out very differently.
Tempers Flare Between No. 54 & No. 6 Pit Crews
NASCAR pit crews work in close quarters with their competition week in and week out, and sometimes, that can lead to conflict.
That is exactly what happened on lap 52 of Sunday’s race at Sonoma. During a green flag pit cycle, Ty Gibbs came to the service of the No. 54 pit crew for tires and fuel. On the way to his pit stall, Gibbs through the stall of Brad Keselowski, getting close to a couple of No. 6 RFK Racing crew members in the process.
You be the judge 👨🏻⚖️ pic.twitter.com/JYiUYvRp9e
— RFK Racing (@RFKracing) July 13, 2025
After Gibbs pulled away, a couple members of the No. 6 team came over to confront the No. 54 team, feeling that Gibbs drove close to their crew guys on purpose. The pit road incident may stemmed from contact earlier on the race track. A few laps before the pit stops, Chris Buescher, another RFK Racing driver, moved Gibbs out of the groove in turn 11 to make the pass in his No. 17 Ford.
The conflict between crews did not escalate beyond words exchanged and a couple of light shoves, but it was a reminder of how heated things can get on pit road.
Pit Road Police
Here is a summary of the pit road penalties levied by NASCAR in the Golden State:
- Four drivers got caught speeding on pit road: Cole Custer on lap 26, Katherine Legge on lap 27, Ty Dillon on lap 56, and Denny Hamlin on lap 87. The first three of those penalties occurred under yellow, resulting in a tail of the field penalty for the ensuing restart. Hamlin, meanwhile, sped under green, so he had to do a pass-through penalty under green. Of these four drivers, Dillon rallied the best to 17th, using an aggressive last-lap move to pass Alex Bowman and advance to the semi-finals of the In-Season Challenge.
- The No. 7 Spire Motorsports crew got penalized on lap 90 for a safety violation during a green-flag pit stop. Consequently, driver Justin Haley got had to make a pass-through penalty under green. Thanks in part to a shuffling of the running order caused by the late pit strategy, Haley rebounded to 14th at the checkered flag.
- As a result of the lap 96 lost wheel, Ware got hit with a two-lap penalty in-race, with suspensions looming for the No. 51 team’s jackman and rear tire changer later this week.
Look Ahead to Next Week
The NASCAR Cup Series returns to oval racing with a trip to Dover Motor Speedway for the running of the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 next Sunday, July 20. Race coverage from The Monster Mile begins at 2 p.m. ET on TNT.
Dover is home to one of the trickest pit roads for drivers in NASCAR. At 35 mph, Dover’s pit road speed is among the slowest in the Cup Series. The pit lane is also one of the most narrow on the circuit. Keep an eye out for more speeding penalties and contact between cars on pit road next Sunday.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 as an iRacing contributor. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.