{"id":651650,"date":"2026-05-06T14:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/651650\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T14:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T14:00:10","slug":"nascar-makes-watkins-glen-change-as-shane-van-gisbergen-weighs-in-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/651650\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR makes Watkins Glen change as Shane van Gisbergen weighs in – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Shane<\/p>\n

Shane van Gisbergen has had his say on NASCAR making track limit changes at Watkins Glen (Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

NASCAR road course King Shane van Gisbergen has weighed in on massive track limit changes at Watkins Glen as the Kiwi looks to score back-to-back wins at the track this weekend.<\/p>\n

Van Gisbergen, 36, a two-time Supercars champion who started his transition to NASCAR in 2023, winning on his debut in the inaugural Chicago Street Race, won at Watkins Glen last year, one of his five Cup Series victories in 2025.<\/p>\n

The win didn\u2019t impact his position in the Cup Series playoffs, with the Trackhouse Racing star already booking his place in last year\u2019s Championship eliminator in Mexico City<\/a> earlier in the season. Van Gisbergen<\/a> has since continued to improve his oval racing, scoring his best-ever oval finish in 2026 at Atlanta.<\/p>\n

However, ahead of his return to Watkins Glen, where he\u2019s looking to secure a second consecutive victory, NASCAR has made massive changes to the track. NASCAR<\/a> has changed its track limits, placing tire packs in the runoff area after Turn 1 and at the exit of the carousel. It comes after NASCAR made changes earlier this season to limit fuel-saving tactics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Van Gisbergen has now addressed NASCAR\u2019s efforts to force drivers back onto the track quicker. \u201cI think Turn 1 is a really good solution. I think what they’ve done with the tire packs there and having the gaps in the walls is.. I think that’s going to work,\u201d he told Savage Ventures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe exit of the carousel is a bit of a worry. The angle that it comes back on, in my experience with those tire walls, they grab cars and spit them out. So, yeah, don’t like the look of that, but smarter people have come up with those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"SVG\"<\/p>\n

SVG is looking to go back-to-back at The Glen (Image: Getty Images)NASCAR changes SVG\u2019s life<\/p>\n

SVG relocated his entire life to the U.S. to pursue his NASCAR adventure. “I think the difference has been that I’m with the team full time this year and I’ve been able to develop a setup and fine-tune it to the way I want,” SVG said.<\/p>\n

“Last year I kind of just jumped in and got the Trackhouse car delivered to Kaulig and then the Kaulig guys would run it, whereas this year, I’m all involved in the setup, trying to learn every week, and I really feel like as a team we’ve been able to tailor the car to my needs.<\/p>\n

“I think we have gotten better rather than anything else. I think we turn up to the track, we know what our tools are, our tuning tools. I know what I want the car to feel like. Like this Monday was a really intense meeting trying to improve on what we had last year, and got here yesterday and the car felt night and day different. I think it’s just us as a team getting better.”<\/p>\n

SVG has admitted that the move makes him incredibly homesick. Still, his father has made it to some of his races. “He came to Chicago and then he came two or three times last year,” said SVG about his dad attending races.<\/p>\n

“But yeah, it’s been pretty difficult. He lost his wife, my mother, and then his sister and then his mom a month or so ago. It’s been a really rough run for Dad. It’s hard to support him when I’m on the other side of the world. That’s probably why I’m the most homesick.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen my sister has moved away as well, so he’s kind of by himself all of a sudden. I try and talk to him every day, and yeah, to have him here, and like he was almost in tears, too. It’s really special to share that, because we’re a long way from home.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shane van Gisbergen has had his say on NASCAR making track limit changes at Watkins Glen (Image: Getty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,2332,634,9706,82],"class_list":["post-651650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-motorsport-section","tag-nascar","tag-shane-van-gisbergen","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651650","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=651650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}