{"id":31719,"date":"2025-07-30T05:23:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T05:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/31719\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T05:23:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T05:23:14","slug":"nascar-news-greg-murphy-lauds-game-changing-van-gisbergen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/31719\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR news: Greg Murphy lauds game-changing van Gisbergen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\u2018Completely
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tShane van Gisbergen won at Sonoma in the Red Bull-backed #88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet Camaro.<\/p>\n

Van Gisbergen has been a force, winning at three of the four non-oval races to date this season across Mexico City, Chicago, and Sonoma.<\/p>\n

The only race he hasn\u2019t won was Circuit of the Americas where he battled an ill-handing car and finished sixth.<\/p>\n

His sheer stranglehold has even the most experienced drivers scratching their heads.<\/p>\n

Speaking on New Zealand radio show Sports Nation, four-time Bathurst 1000 winner Murphy said van Gisbergen has left drivers wondering whether they can win on non-ovals.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has qualified basically for the Playoffs by winning on road courses and dominating,\u201d said Murphy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s put himself in an amazing position and I think it\u2019s changed the way everyone is having to think about how they\u2019re going about qualifying and racing to get themselves into the Playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been really interesting listening or reading a few comments from other very, very established champions in NASCAR and talking about his prowess and how he operates the car in a road course or street course environment and how he manipulates the pedals and how these other guys are just like refusing to have to go and adapt and change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Shane<\/p>\n

Shane van Gisbergen won on the streets of Chicago in the #88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet Camaro.<\/p>\n

What van Gisbergen lacks in oval experience he makes up for in spades on road courses and street circuits thanks to his delicate footwork.<\/p>\n

For the lion\u2019s share of speedway races, left foot braking is the default setting. For van Gisbergen, right foot braking has for the longest time been the standard.<\/p>\n

Murphy said his experience racing touring cars makes him the perfect candidate for stock car success in what is by and large a foreign setting for them on road courses and street circuits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe funny thing is, it\u2019s all normal for us \u2014 for people down here that have been racing touring cars and Supercars and the likes,\u201d said Murphy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had races where we start from the start line and we\u2019ve got to learn how to heel and toe and match the revs.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of these guys\u2026 like Kyle Larson, who was pretty outspoken and said that he never thought he would be able to do what Shane does, he\u2019s given up on the idea of trying to emulate him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s because they grew up on speedways, two pedal work of the car. They are in top gear on an oval and that\u2019s where they sit and they manipulate the throttle and the brake, so they left foot brake, which I used to do a fair bit of in Supercars.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Shane does is he heels and toes, but he manipulates the clutch pedal as well and avoids what they have in NASCAR quite a lot which is rear [wheel] hop.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing into a corner, certainly on a street circuit or a road course, which has become a lot more popular now in NASCAR than what it ever was before, these guys are going into the corner, they\u2019re putting their left foot on the brake, and they\u2019re changing down and blipping the throttle on the way down, but when you get a mis-match every so slightly, what happens is the rear locks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rear wheels are going slower in rotation than what they\u2019re going down the road in road speed. They get this hopping sensation, which often leads to losing the rear of the car and spinning.<\/p>\n

\u201cShane manipulates the clutch pedal to avoid this hop, and it\u2019s just so efficient. It looks after the tyre and it also guarantees that he\u2019s never going to lock the rears and go off into a corner. It\u2019s so simple to us who have grown up doing that.<\/p>\n

\u201cShane did master it in Supercars probably more than most people. He\u2019s taken this technique to the US and he\u2019s got all the locals completely bamboozled with it, which is quite funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Four-time<\/p>\n

Four-time Bathurst 1000 winner Greg Murphy.<\/p>\n

Murphy also noted van Gisbergen\u2019s slow but steady oval progress.<\/p>\n

The Trackhouse Racing driver finished 19th at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the Brickyard 400. He qualified 11th for that race but was blighted by a serious vibration.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s making progress [on ovals], even though it might seem slow to people,\u201d said Murphy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe oval side of things is just such a massive learn for someone who hasn\u2019t grown up doing that kind of stuff. I think he\u2019s making really good progress and he has opened some eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just amazing that he\u2019s gone there and created this situation,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis success I think has is only just beginning in that formula, and he\u2019s loving it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a guy that wants to race every week and now he\u2019s got that wish. He\u2019s racing nearly every week and just immersed in it and it suits his style. Long may it continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Gisbergen\u2019s next race is at Iowa on Monday, August 4 (AEST).<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane van Gisbergen won at Sonoma in the Red Bull-backed #88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet Camaro. Van Gisbergen has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,29729,806,805,803,804,955,9909,85],"class_list":["post-31719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-greg-murphy","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-nascar","tag-shane-van-gisbergen","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}