Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Watkins Glen International was the latest masterclass from Shane van Gisbergen (pictured), and it immediately evoked memories of another road-course wizard from motorsport’s golden era.
–by Mark Cipolloni–
The New Zealander started on pole but dropped deep in the field after a late green-flag pit stop. He erased a 29-second deficit to race leader Ty Gibbs in stunning fashion, then pulled away to win by 7.2 seconds over Michael McDowell. It was van Gisbergen’s seventh Cup Series victory — and every single one has come on a road or street course.
Former driver and NASCAR analyst Kyle Petty, who watched Dan Gurney race as an eight- or nine-year-old kid at Riverside, saw the parallels immediately.
“Watching him, it is truly amazing,” Petty said. “I was fortunate… I saw Dan Gurney win at Riverside. And watching Dan Gurney, he would be incredibly fast, but you didn’t know he was fast. You couldn’t see that he was fast, and that’s the way Shane is. You watch Shane and he is deceptively fast… He runs just fast enough to stay in front and then when it’s time to go, he just catches another gear and goes somewhere else that no one else in the Cup Series can go right now.”
Dan Gurney: The Original Road-Course Assassin
Long before van Gisbergen arrived in NASCAR, Dan Gurney — the versatile American star who also excelled in Formula 1, IndyCar, and sports cars — did exactly the same thing. In just 16 NASCAR Cup Series starts spread across a decade, Gurney scored five wins. Every single victory came at the same place: Riverside International Raceway, the legendary Southern California road course.
Dan Gurney wheeling the #121 Wood Brothers Ford to one of his many NASCAR Cup race wins at Riverside, CA
He won the Motor Trend 500 (later the Winston Western 500) in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, and 1968 — four straight at one point, then again after a brief hiatus. The race was so thoroughly dominated by Gurney that it was sometimes nicknamed “The Gurney 500.” In nine starts at Riverside, he recorded five wins, five top-fives, six top-10s, two poles, and led 696 laps in his entire Cup career (almost all of them at that one track). His average finish there: a sparkling 8.8.
Gurney wasn’t a full-time NASCAR regular. He was a “ringer” — an open-wheel and sports-car ace who dropped into stock-car races when the schedule hit a road course. He drove for powerhouse teams like Holman-Moody and the Wood Brothers, often in Fords, and made the NASCAR regulars look ordinary on the twisty, technical layout at Riverside. Like van Gisbergen decades later, Gurney made it look effortless: smooth, precise, and deceptively quick until the moment he decided to pull the pin and disappear.
1968 Dan Gurney driving the Wood Brothers NASCAR Cup car at Riverside gets quick pit service
Van Gisbergen: The Modern Echo
Fast-forward more than half a century, and the script is repeating itself. Van Gisbergen, a three-time Supercars champion with a background in touring cars and sports prototypes, entered NASCAR as a part-timer and immediately began embarrassing the Cup regulars on any track that turned left and right.
His seven Cup wins have all come on road or street circuits: Chicago Street Course (his historic 2023 debut victory), Mexico City, Sonoma, Charlotte Roval, and multiple trips to Watkins Glen. He has now won at The Glen at least twice in recent years, including the latest 2026 domination where he charged from 26th after his final pit stop and led the majority of the race’s closing stages.
Shane Van Gisbergen, driver of the #97 Superfile Chevrolet, drives during the NASCAR Cup Series Go Bowling at The Glen at Watkins Glen International on May 10, 2026 in Watkins Glen, New York. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images for NASCAR)
He has posted wins by double-digit margins on multiple occasions and routinely finds pace that the rest of the field simply cannot match once the race settles into a rhythm. Even when strategy or cautions appear to put the win in doubt, van Gisbergen’s tire management, racecraft, and raw speed on technical corners allow him to surge forward in a way that looks almost video-game-like.
As Petty noted, the similarity to Gurney isn’t just in the results — it’s in the style. Both drivers hide their speed until the critical moments, then find “another gear” that leaves everyone else scrambling.
The Enduring Lesson
NASCAR has always had its road-course specialists, but few have made the transition from other disciplines look quite so effortless as Gurney and now van Gisbergen. In an era when the Cup schedule features more road and street races than ever before, the presence of a driver like SVG — and the historical blueprint left by Gurney — reminds everyone that raw oval speed isn’t the only path to glory.
Ovals remain a work in progress for van Gisbergen, but on the twisty tracks that reward precision, braking, and adaptability, he continues to do what Gurney did best: mop the floor with the field while making it look almost too easy.
The next time the Cup Series rolls into a road course, don’t be surprised if history repeats itself once again. Just ask Kyle Petty — he’s seen this show before.