WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Shane van Gisbergen has done it again.
Van Gisbergen won his fourth race of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season at Watkins Glen International and fifth of his young Cup career. It’s the fourth straight road course of the season that the field has bowed down to the driver of the No. 88.
Additionally, van Gisbergen ties Denny Hamlin for the most wins on the season.
As van Gisbergen loads up on playoff points just before the playoffs begin in three weeks, he also breaks a three-way tie between himself, Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson for the most wins in a single Cup season by a rookie.
For the Kiwi, team chemistry at Trackhouse Racing has helped him perform his best in his rookie season.
”It means everything,” van Gisbergen said after his win. “The prep that we go through — not just for these road courses, but we do it every week. A lot of times over the last few weeks, I’ve felt like we’ve gotten a lot better.
”It’s just been cool working with a great bunch of people. To share four wins with everyone and see how much it meant to everyone — when they’re high-fiving during the burnout, you can see how into it they are. It’s so cool.”
Stewart achieved the then-record in 1999 by winning the fall race at Richmond Raceway and then going back-to-back at Phoenix Raceway and Homestead-Miami Speedway. Johnson then tied the record in 2002 by winning at Auto Club Speedway and both Dover Motor Speedway races.
Then there’s van Gisbergen, who has won strictly on road courses. He started off his four-in-a-row dominance by winning at Autodromos Hermanos Rodriguez, following it up with back-to-back wins at the Chicago street course (the site of his first career win in his debut) and Sonoma Raceway.
After the Sonoma victory, van Gisbergen became the winningest foreign-born driver in Cup history. Now, with his latest triumph at The Glen (a redemption race from one year ago where a mistake on the final lap cost him the win), van Gisbergen cements himself as the winningest rookie in series history.
The only road course the No. 88 team missed out on is Circuit of the Americas, but still managed his only other top 10 of the year with a sixth-place finish.
”[Team owner Justin Marks] said, ‘Let’s go win all of them,” Stephen Doran, van Gisbergen’s crew chief, said on winning all the road courses on the schedule. “We’ve come close.”
”What he’s doing right now is why he’s in the car,” Marks said. “Because we feel like we had an opportunity to do this. But when these wins just keep coming, and the way that they are … it’s an amazing thing to watch.
”To watch him continue to execute at such a high level is why we’ve made a big commitment to him. … It’s gonna be hard to really understand the gravity of it until we are removed from it for some time. Right now, we’re just enjoying it.”
The win is timely for van Gisbergen, as he signed a multi-year contract extension with Trackhouse on Aug. 8 before the weekend’s activities commenced.
”I feel like Trackhouse Racing is my home,” van Gisbergen said in the news release.
What started as a one-off effort for PROJECT91 has blossomed into something much greater for the 36-year-old, as he stands alone in rookie wins.
”That’s why I moved here,” van Gisbergen said. “That’s why Justin believed in me. He knew I could do this. I changed my life to come and do this. To come and make true of what everyone believed in me, and to execute myself and get everything right? It’s why I go racing.”
When taking stock of what he’s done so far this season, van Gisbergen said it likely won’t hit him until later in the night.
”It normally hits me on the plane ride home — or 4 a.m. after a few beers,” he said, referencing a humorous drunk tweet he sent out after his win at Chicago. “I’ll try not to tweet at 4 a.m. tonight.”
Humor aside, the moment is not lost on the New Zealander.
”Nowadays, I just try to reflect and take in the moment a little bit more.”
While the playoffs are at the forefront of van Gisbergen’s and the No. 88 team’s minds, sights are also set on making even more history by becoming the first driver to win five straight road course races, as the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL rounds out the road course schedule for 2025.
”It’s a funky, odd track,” van Gisbergen said. “But a pretty cool challenge, and I think it races well. … That’ll be a good one for us if we make it to the second round [of the Cup Series playoffs].”
Not to mention that first win on an oval.
”I think going back to some of these places for a second time is going to be huge,” Doran said of van Gisbergen’s oval work. “He’s such a quick learner. You look at some of these places like Darlington [Raceway], he was honestly a top-10 car. … Some of these others will be a lot better than the first time around.”
But for now, the team will enjoy yet another historic moment for the three-time Australian V8 Supercars champion.
Anthony Damcott joined Frontstretch in March 2022. Currently, he is an editor and co-authors Fire on Fridays (Fridays); he is also the primary Truck Series reporter/writer and serves as an at-track reporter. He has also assisted with short track content and social media, among other duties he takes/has taken on for the site. In 2025, he became an official member of the National Motorsports Press Association. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight coordinator in his free time.
You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.