In a thrilling 160-lapper at the World Centre of Racing that came down to a green-white-chequered finish, van Gisbergen narrowly missed out after being mired in a last-lap crash.<\/p>\n
Van Gisbergen took avoiding action and spun on the back stretch, and was ultimately classified 27th.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne night doesn\u2019t sum up our year, I guess,\u201d said van Gisbergen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t been good enough, but it\u2019s been cool to be close. A shame we\u2019re not in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBits of it were good,\u201d he said of his season.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a team we\u2019ve obviously struggled. I\u2019m proud that I\u2019ve been able to match my teammates on the ovals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ve stepped up this year, but obviously you want to be in that Chase and didn\u2019t make it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The overtime finish was triggered by a vicious crash for Carson Hocevar, whose #77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro got loose before shooting up the track.<\/p>\n
Erik Jones was left with nowhere to go and ploughed his #43 Legacy Motor Club Toyota Camry into the back of Hocevar.<\/p>\n
Ty Gibbs was another innocent casualty, who had to take evasive action and spun his #54 Joe Gibbs Racing Camry.<\/p>\n
At the time of the yellow, van Gisbergen was running 12th. The team feared he did not have enough fuel and elected to pit and take four tyres.<\/p>\n
Van Gisbergen had been urged for the duration of Stage 3 to save fuel, but didn\u2019t do enough to have the fuel in hand for the final few laps.<\/p>\n
Trackhouse Racing crew chief Stephen Doran told van Gisbergen they made the right decision to pit under the yellow, which was an extended one due to the clean-up.<\/p>\n
For the restart, van Gisbergen lined up 27th while his primary adversary Preece lined up second alongside Zane Smith.<\/p>\n
Behind them, Ryan Blaney was third, Tyler Reddick fourth, Austin Cindric fifth and Daniel Suarez completed the top six.<\/p>\n
Preece and Smith ran side-by-side through the first two turns before the #38 Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang edge clear heading into the third turn.<\/p>\n
Smith led the white flag with Preece second and fractionally ahead of Reddick.<\/p>\n
The race-defining moment came when Smith got out of shape covering Reddick. He shot up the track and into the wall before coming down in front of the field.<\/p>\n
Multiple cars were caught up in the melee and the race remained green until a second incident involving Ryan Blaney forced NASCAR to throw the yellow \u2013 and at that moment, Preece led.<\/p>\n
The RFK Racing driver celebrated in style, performing a burnout on the front stretch before climbing atop his Ford Mustang.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just speechless right now,\u201d said Preece.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose guys, that #60 group \u2013 we\u2019re fighters, and when you put our back against the wall we swing hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo years ago there were a lot of keyboard warriors saying I was nothing but we just kicked their butts tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first NASCAR Cup Series points-paying race win for Preece and the first time he has made the Chase.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a testament of how prepared these race cars are man,\u201d said Preece.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a racer. I know what it takes to build speed. Every man and woman at RFK, thank you for giving me a rocket ship so I could go to the moon tonight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is redemption.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NASCAR Cup Series Chase begins with the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington on September 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a thrilling 160-lapper at the World Centre of Racing that came down to a green-white-chequered finish, van…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,9909,6490,85],"class_list":["post-873464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-shane-van-gisbergen","tag-slot3","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873464","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=873464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}