Shane van Gisbergen on track during the NASCAR Cup Series at Talladega.
This weekend marks van Gisbergen’s fifth NASCAR Cup Series start at Martinsville.
The circuit has been a strong suit for the New Zealander with an average finish of 17.8.
In four starts, he has three top 15 finishes and a rap sheet that reads 12th, 34th, 14th, and 11th.
It was also the scene of his second-best NASCAR Cup Series oval qualifying of fifth earlier this year.
From there, van Gisbergen went backwards, however. He narrowly missed out on a top 10 finish, regularly losing ground to his rivals on the two-by-two restarts en route to 11th.
It left the Kiwi “pissed off” as he struggled with tyre wear and car positioning on restarts.
“I just wasn’t good enough on the restarts,” van Gisbergen reflected.
“I would lose one or two spots each time and then wouldn’t be able to get them back.
“We had good speed and I was able to drive back up to the guys that passed me.
“Every time I’ve gone to Martinsville, I’ve gotten better and better. So, there is good progression there.
“We’ve got a good notebook on these types of tracks, so I think that really helps me.”
Van Gisbergen has often noted that the short tracks put great emphasis on the driver, who can overcome car deficiencies – and reiterated that point ahead of this weekend.
Short tracks, in general, have brought van Gisbergen good results. His best oval finish to date remains fifth at North Wilkesboro this year.
“I feel like you can have a little more influence on the car, like you can manipulate it with the brake or brake bias and whatever gear you’re running,” he explained.
“You can vary your line a little more. I feel like there’s a little more as a driver you can do.
“Also, that just means on the big tracks, I’m not good enough to know what I want from the car yet or how to get the car to do what I want, whether that’s with feedback to my engineer or just in general.
“I feel like these tracks, you can kind of make up for a deficiency in the car, as well, with whatever tools you have, whereas on a big track, you’re kind of just stuck with what you got sometimes. So yeah, it seems to help me.”
The NASCAR Cup Series Xfinity 500 at Martinsville is the second-to-last race of the season and gets underway at 5:09am AEDT on Monday, November 2.