HAMPTON, Ga. — It was just this Spring at EchoPark Speedway when we saw second-year NASCAR Cup Series driver and road course ace, Shane van Gisbergen, score a seventh-place finish after going for a spin earlier in the race.
In his return to the speedway for Sunday’s (July 13) Quaker State 400, after a long night at the track due to a lengthy weather delay, van Gisbergen crossed the line in seventh after making some daring moves to try and get himself in position for the win. He ended the night officially sixth after Bubba Wallace was penalized for going below the yellow line on the backstretch.
It wasn’t until stage two, after the weather delay, that SVG found himself in the top 10. He stayed in contention from that point on and kept his nose clean throughout the going, which is what most of the field did apart from a few incidents late in the running after the field got bunched back up again after two solo spins from AJ Allmendinger and Kyle Larson.
Van Gisbergen mentioned the result was a much-needed good points day for his Trackhouse Racing team considering they are right on the cutline to make the Chase.
“Yeah, still replaying it in my head, but, yeah, take a seventh, we need a great points day and, yeah, excellent day,” van Gisbergen said post-race. “We were up there most of the day, didn’t get many stage points but got some, so yeah, we’ll take that, it’s pretty fun.”
One of the biggest storylines that has followed SVG through his time in Cup is how he is still learning on the ovals and figuring out what he needs to do in key situations like Sunday. Tyler Reddick approached van Gisbergen after the race.
What was the conversation about? Reddick felt he needed to give SVG a pointer for the restarts at these drafting-style racetracks.
“Just talking about how important that launch is, for all of us, you know, he didn’t lose a lot of ground. I lost a lot,” Reddick said. “Just trying to help ourselves have a shot at winning there, that’s all.
“It’s just super crucial on overtime restart to be tight together and, you know, he told me he just missed a little bit. So that’s all it was just a conversation about that.”
SVG lined up behind Reddick on the final restart but didn’t stay hooked up to him enough to get their lane moving as well as the bottom row. Van Gisbergen was open to the advice during their conversation in the pits and believes he still has stuff to work on.
“I just didn’t do a good enough job getting attached to them and, sort of dropped off, and then the (No.) 3 wasn’t there to help me,” he stated. “I could have managed that better and I needed to be attached to them, and the (No.) 12 and the (No.) 23 were on the inside; they just took off.”
The night was ultimately a much-needed night for SVG as he looks to move onward in his quest to make the 16-driver Chase without another road course on the schedule for the rest of the year. Although van Gisbergen lost a spot in the point standings, from 14th to 15th, he still has a 31-point advantage over the cut line.
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