{"id":468662,"date":"2026-02-11T19:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/468662\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T19:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:42:11","slug":"shane-van-gisbergen-came-to-nascar-for-ovals-aims-to-make-chase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/468662\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane van Gisbergen came to NASCAR for ovals; aims to make Chase"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shane van Gisbergen<\/a> didn\u2019t come to America to keep racing on road courses, he could have remained in Supercars to do that, so the decrease in road courses and a key NASCAR rule change doesn\u2019t bother him any.<\/p>\n

Maybe more important to his success is that NASCAR reverted to the Chase for the Championship format this season, meaning \u2018SVG\u2019 can no longer simply win his way into the playoffs. He won five times last year, all on road and street courses in his full-time rookie season but otherwise would have finished outside the top-20 in a straight-up points battle.<\/p>\n

However, he also started to acclimate to ovals at the end of the year and still finished 12th in the final playoff standings. The purist in him won\u2019t miss the Playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot the real racer in me,\u201d said Van Gisbergen on Wednesday during Daytona 500 Media Day. \u201cI think we can make it in on merit as well if we get everything right. I think it loses some excitement in some ways but as a racing championship, I think this is a better way to do it, yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

What about NASCAR taking away two road courses with the loss of Aut\u00f3dromo Hermanos Rodr\u00edguez and the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL?<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t join the series to do road courses,\u201d Van Gisbergen said. \u201cObviously, it\u2019s a bonus and yeah, I would love more road courses than less but it is what it is and thankfully we are getting better on the ovals, so that\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2025 season was only the second of any kind that \u2018SVG\u2019 raced primarily on ovals, first in the Xfinity Series and then Cup, and even that transition forced him to adapt to two drastically different cars too.<\/p>\n

With that said, there were some highlights on ovals, like ripping the fence at Richmond. He was highly competitive at Kansas and New Hampshire in the fall too. There were moments where it started to visibly click for the three-time Supercars champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s still an evolving thing, you know, so I don’t feel like as much of a deer in headlights anymore, which is cool,\u201d Van Gisbergen said. \u201cI sort of feel like I fit in more and can go with the rhythm of the race more over the weekends.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I’m still learning a lot. I didn\u2019t know where to start with the driving, the set-ups, the cars and the racing dynamic like how the surface changes. There are so many different things. It\u2019s a completely different discipline to any other driving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Shane <\/p>\n

Shane van Gisbergen, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet<\/p>\n

Photo by: Jonathan Bachman – Getty Images<\/p>\n

How about the short tracks, specifically?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I don’t think so,\u201d he said. \u201cI still struggle on them, like Bristol for example and Phoenix, they’ve been probably my toughest tracks. So those are the ones I’m focused on more to try to get better at.\u201d<\/p>\n

So all told, \u2018SVG\u2019 wants to just keep progressing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve never really been a goal person,\u201d he said. \u201cMaking the playoffs would be nice but I just need to keep getting better and keep learning, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane van Gisbergen didn\u2019t come to America to keep racing on road courses, he could have remained in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,19546,2884,634,3628,9706,191049,82,36998],"class_list":["post-468662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-daytona-500","tag-daytona-international-speedway","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup","tag-shane-van-gisbergen","tag-shane-van-gisbergen-came-to-nascar-for-ovals-aims-to-make-chase","tag-sports","tag-trackhouse-racing-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}