“I’ve changed my life to come and do this”

There has never been a road course ace like Shane van Gisberen in NASCAR before. He has won four of the five road/street course races this year, and the Cup field seemed powerless to do anything about it. But with his latest victory at Watkins Glen, does he feel like the elite talents of the sport are getting any closer to his pace?

“I think the difference has been that I’m with the team full time this year and I’ve been able to develop a setup and fine-tune it to the way I want,” explained SVG. “Last year I kind of just jumped in and got the Trackhouse car delivered to Kaulig and then the Kaulig guys would run it, whereas this year, I’m all involved in the setup, trying to learn every week, and I really feel like as a team we’ve been able to tailor the car to my needs.

“I think we have gotten better rather than anything else. I think we turn up to the track, we know what our tools are, our tuning tools. I know what I want the car to feel like. Like this Monday was a really intense meeting trying to improve on what we had last year, and got here yesterday and the car felt night and day different. I think it’s just us as a team getting better.”

Going to bed angry before the big win

SVG was also extremely motivated to win on Sunday. One year ago, he suffered a bitter defeat at The Glen when he made a mistake while leading on the final lap. And one day prior to his Cup triumph, he got wrecked out of the lead by his teammate, Connor Zilisch. 

“Yeah, it certainly makes up for it,” said SVG. “I went to bed pretty angry yesterday, to junk a car and have another DNF, yeah, I was pretty angry/sad last night. Nice to just clear the head this morning, come here and have a great day. Executed from the start, no mistakes, and yeah, it means everything. This is why we work so hard, and yeah, to get another win, it’s pretty darned cool.”

Improving on ovals and ‘dreaming’ of winning 

Shane van Gisbergen, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet

Photo by: Sean Gardner / Getty Images

Despite matching Denny Hamlin for wins this year, SVG still has a lot of work to do on ovals, where he has shown steady improvement. The three-time Supercars champion feels like he and the No. 88 team are only getting better in that regard as the season progresses.

“The prep that we go through, not just for these road courses, but we do it every week,” said SVG. “As I’ve said a lot of times over the last few weeks, I feel like we’ve gotten a lot better, especially on the ovals, and it’s been cool working with a great bunch of people, and just to share four wins with everyone and seeing how much it meant to everyone when you’re high fiving during the burnout, you can see how into it they are. It’s so cool.”

His best result on an oval in the Cup Series came with Kaulig Racing at Martinsville last fall, finishing 12th. In the Xfinity Series, he placed as high as third at Atlanta. When fellow Supercars star Scott McLaughlin made the switch to IndyCar, he eventually found his way to Victory Lane on ovals, but that didn’t happen until his fourth season.

“It’s obviously something to dream about winning on an oval, and superspeedways I’ve had some pretty good moments there,” said SVG when asked about one day winning an oval race. “Last year, I think Talladega, Kaulig was a smaller team, Dad was on the front row of the pit box helping with the strategy or talking with Travis Mack on the strategy. He loves it.”

Celebrating with his father

Shane van Gisbergen, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet

Photo by: Chris Graythen – Getty Images

His father’s presence made the Watkins Glen win even more special, as SVG recently admitted to being ‘homesick’ after moving to the states to compete in NASCAR’s grueling schedule.

“He came to Chicago and then he came two or three times last year, said SVG. “But yeah, it’s been pretty difficult. He lost his wife, my mother, and then his sister and then his mom a month or so ago. It’s been a really rough run for Dad. It’s hard to support him when I’m on the other side of the world. That’s probably why I’m the most homesick. Then my sister has moved away as well, so he’s kind of by himself all of a sudden. I try and talk to him every day, and yeah, to have him here, and like he was almost in tears, too. It’s really special to share that, because we’re a long way from home.”