SHANE van Gisbergen is relishing walking the playoffs tightrope as the NASCAR Cup Series edges towards its postseason.
Following a rare week off, the Cup Series field returns to action this weekend at Iowa Speedway for what is the fourth-last event of the regular season.
Van Gisbergen holds 15th in the standings, with the top 16 on points progressing to the Chase.
Austin Cindric is currently on the bubble, 19 points back from SVG, with Ryan Preece first among those on the outside looking in at a further 38 points adrift.
Others sitting outside the top 16 include Brad Keselowski, Alex Bowman and SVG’s Trackhouse Racing teammates Ross Chastain and Connor Zilisch, to name a few.
“It’s pretty awesome. To be honest, I was stoked after making those leaps above the cutline,” said van Gisbergen.
“It’s been great to get a lot of points on these ovals.
“As a team we aren’t exactly where we want to be. We want to make the most of the bad days and try and score as many points as possible.
“On our bad days we still have to be 15th to 20th and that’s not a good day for points. you know.
“Sometimes you have to suck those days up and accept it, even though you want to be better.
“There are four races to go and our focus at the moment is points every week.”
Van Gisbergen has taken confidence from last month placing sixth at Atlanta Motor Speedway and, in particular, fifth at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
“North Wilkesboro was a race that the metric helped us, but it also shows that if we can start up front, we can stay there,” he said.
“That really puts the focus on qualifying, I need to be better, and we need to make our cars better. It’s just awesome to race at the front and keep ourselves there.
“It shows that everyone is executing and when it all comes together, we can do it.”