Shane van Gisbergen Wiki – Shane van Gisbergen Biography
In his debut, New Zealand native Shane van Gisbergen earned his first NASCAR Cup Series victory in the opening Chicago Street race. Shane van Gisbergen is a professional racing driver from New Zealand, primarily known for his success in motorsports, particularly in the field of touring car racing. He was born on May 9, 1989, in Auckland, New Zealand.
Van Gisbergen won his Cup debut on a rainy Sunday in downtown Chicago, chasing Justin Haley and Chase Elliott in a memorable finish to the series’ first street race.
After passing Elliott, van Gisbergen dueled Haley in the closing laps before the three-time Supercar champion moved to the front for good. Haley remained in second place and Elliott was third.
“The racing, the battles were a lot of fun,” van Gisbergen said. “But everyone was respectful and clean. It was really cool.” Van Gisbergen, 34, a native of New Zealand, became the first driver to win his Cup Series debut since Johnny Rutherford in the second qualifying race at Daytona in 1963.
He got the chance to drive the No. 91 Chevrolet in Chicago as part of Trackhouse Racing’s Project 91. Trackhouse is owned by Marks, and the goal of the Project 91 program is to give international drivers a chance in NASCAR.
“This was a shower idea,” Marks said. “I mean it was me thinking I’m a huge fan of all different types of motorsports and I’ve competed in all different types of motorsports. I wanted to bring my love of global motorsports to NASCAR.”
When van Gisbergen was credited with the lead on lap 25, it was the first lap led by Project 91 in three starts. He became the sixth driver born outside of the United States to win a NASCAR Cup Series race, joining Marcos Ambrose, Mario Andretti, Juan Pablo Montoya, Earl Ross, and Daniel Suárez.
“He’s going to go home and tell all his friends how bad we are,” Elliott joked.
Van Gisbergen won his first Supercars championship in 2016 and has added two more in the last two years. He was aided in his NASCAR debut by Darian Grubb, who was Tony Stewart’s crew chief when he won the Cup Series championship in 2011.
Trackhouse Racing also won last weekend’s Cup Series race with Ross Chastain at Nashville Superspeedway. “I was a huge Tony Stewart fan, so working with Darian was very special,” said van Gisbergen.
Kyle Larson finished fourth in Chicago, followed by Kyle Busch and Austin Cindric. Christopher Bell won both stages and led a race-high 37 laps, but dropped to 18th.
The race was scheduled to be 100 laps and 220 miles but was cut short due to diminishing sunlight after the start was delayed more than 90 minutes due to historic rain flooding the course. The last half of the Xfinity race, which was to resume after it was suspended Saturday due to lightning, was canceled.
Just before the scheduled start, as the rain persisted, polesitter Denny Hamlin took to Twitter to push for a delay, and Noah Gragson posted a video of one of his tires floating on pit road. NASCAR then decided to allow the drivers to return to their trucks.
NASCAR COO Steve O’Donnell said they never planned to start at that point
“What we wanted to do was get all the things that needed to happen so we could start the engines and get going,” he said. “So when we know the track is ready to go, you know we’re not going to go through the anthem and driver introductions and that kind of thing.”
The weather eventually cleared up, but there were puddles on the course when the race started. Even as it began to dry out, and teams began to break in their slippery tires, water sprayed everywhere whenever a driver slid into a tire barrier.
“It certainly added a dynamic to the race that’s not too uncommon,” Elliott said. “We’ve been through that scenario before. But to add that to an already new and different atmosphere and a different circuit was a bit strange.”
Gragson, Busch, and Joey Logano visited the tire rows at Turn 6. Hamlin and Elliott got into the tire pack at Turn 2. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was hit by Bubba Wallace and got stuck in the tire barrier at Turn 6. Turn 1 to the end of the turn. career.
There was also a massive collision on Lap 50 involving 14 cars spinning onto East Jackson Drive from Michigan Avenue, clogging the course and almost certainly bringing a smile to regular Chicago drivers familiar with the area.
“It was definitely a first-class event. I obviously enjoyed it and hopefully, we’ll be back tomorrow,” Haley said. “I don’t know about the back half of the grid, but yeah, very good. I’m glad to be a part of it.”
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