Even if Shane Van Gisbergen gets eliminated from the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs after the Bristol Night Race, this is still an incredibly successful Rookie of the Year campaign in which he has already won four times on road courses while making steady progress on ovals.
That’s how the three-time Supercars champion looks at his season in advance of the first cut-off race where he needs to make up 15 points by the end of the race
“I think it’s been awesome, yeah,” Van Gisbergen said of his season. “To win the races we have, and show the improvement we have the past few months because we started well below average and steadily progressed, yeah.
“We’re proud of that. We didn’t expect to set the world on fire on ovals but we’ve done a good job the last little while of getting me faster and better.”
And that was kind of the plan for Trackhouse Racing all along.
Shane van Gisbergen, Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, William Byron, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Photo by: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
The hope was that ‘SVG’ could at least win one race, and thus make the playoffs, and therefore put the No. 88 charter inside the top-16 in points for economic reasons. From there, Van Gisbergen would just need to work on improving on ovals, something he had not done until last year in the Xfinity Series.
Instead, SVG has won four times, and is starting to race consistently inside the top-20 on ovals after being consistently outside of the top-30 in the first half of the year. That progress gives Van Gisbergen optimism that things could break right for him to make the Round of 12, which contains the Charlotte Roval.
He’s in this position because strategic decisions trapped him a lap down at Darlington and he simply didn’t speed at Gateway.
“It’s going to be an uphill battle for sure,” Van Gisbergen said. “Yeah. I feel real positive about it and more positive than the first couple of months. We certainly haven’t given up on getting through and we’re going to have a proper crack at it.”
Photos from Bristol – Practice
Bristol – Friday, in photos
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