A Kiwi Makes a Splash in Chicago

Special to MotorsportsMinutePlus

Tim Cronin
Writing from Chicago
Sunday, July 2, 2023

Shane Van Gisbergen grew up in New Zealand and makes his living running in the Australian Supercars stock-car series, where he’s won the championship thrice.

The 34-year-old arrived in Chicago this week with hours of experience running the Grant Park track on a simulator, as did the NASCAR regulars he’d be on the course with in the Grant Park 220.

A “road course ringer,” as such interlopers are called, rarely wins against the usual suspects. You had to go back to Mark Donahue doing so at Riverside in 1973.

A driver winning in his first start in Cup is even rarer. It last happened when the series was called the Grand National circuit, Johnny Rutherford doing so in 1963.

Van Gisbergen, qualified third in the field of 37 for Sunday’s race. That’s when casual observers discovered that the Supercars series runs on a lot of street courses.

Once the green flag waved for the main event, there were equal amounts of talent and drama on the 2.2-mile stage. It looked brilliant on television, and even though it was shortened from the scheduled 100 laps because of approaching darkness - Van Gisbergen won the Grant Park 171.6 - the entertainment factor pinned the needle.

Van Gisbergen, happily pummeled by his giddy crew after the race, may not need a jet to fly back to Australia.

”It’s a whirlwind! What a feeling!” he said in victory lane. “Man, what an experience. It was tough but a lot of fun.

”It was just full send. Everyone else was pushing hard, but I knew we had a tire advantage. Once we started picking them off in front, it was so much fun. Everyone was racing really clean, and I really enjoyed that.”

Supercars are different from Cup cars in their having brake lights. Cup cars give no hint of a driver’s intention, which Van Gisbergen had to get used to.

”You can see where they’re braking and go a bit later,” Van Gisbergen said. “It was a bit tough.”

Not that anyone could tell. His rise to the lead was bold. Van Gisbergen sat second behind Justin Haley going into the eighth restart, on lap 70. He took the lead by getting by Haley entering DuSable Lake Shore Drive, a.k.a. Turn 2. Haley gunned it like a thief going southbound and regained the lead at the kink, Turn 3, but only until Van Gisbergen outbraked Haley to take it back going onto Roosevelt Road, Turn 4. Then he ran away, and did so again after the last restart, an overtime affair necessitated by Bubba Wallace punting Ricky Stenhouse Jr. into the tire barrier on Turn 1, a popular destination for miscues all day.

Van Gisbergen appeared to grab the lead on lap 70. He moved from third to second by dispatching Chase Elliott in Turn 2, then roaring by Haley with an inside move coming down the hill to the corner of Michigan and Balbo.

The whole racing world, including those watching at lunch hour in New Zealand and Australia, was watching. But an instant before, Martin Truex Jr. got stuck in tires in Turn 2, and the yellow glared.

No matter. Even Haley admitted after the race Van Gisbergen had the better car, and he proved it the next time the green was displayed. Van Gisbergen won by 1.259 seconds, with Elliott third with a rebuilt car and Kyle Larson fourth. Kyle Busch recovered from an early tire impaling to take fifth, completing a sweep of the top five places for Chevrolet.

”Coming that close is not what you want,” Haley said of finishing second. “I could get off the corner better than anyone, but what can you do? He had 16-lap fresher tires.”

”That was a clinic,” Elliott said of Van Gisbergen. “He’s going to go home and tell his friends how bad we are. We need to go to work. I need to be better that what I was here this weekend.”

Christopher Bell, who led 37 laps, appeared to be on cruise control until, during the fifth of nine cautions, NASCAR announced the race was being shortened from 100 to 75 laps. Others who had just taken fuel would be able to go the shortened distance, and he would not. That prompted a cascade of profanity from Adam Stevens, Bell’s crew chief, a hasty pit stop, and even more hasty driving.

”Now all those other jerks that pitted before they announced it already got fuel and tires,” Stevens groused.

The Bell was tolled when he, too, clipped the tire barriers. He finished 18th.

This is not the last you’ll see of Van Gisbergen. He said he’ll run one more year in Supercars, then seek a full-time NASCAR Cup ride. He will not be short of offers.

That the drivers were able to turn a lap at all was the work of remarkable effort by NASCAR’s track-drying unit and help from city of Chicago employees. They got it done in time for a 5:37 p.m. start, about an hour behind the original schedule. By race time, perhaps 30,000 fans of a hoped-for 70,000 were still around.

”What an awesome event,” Haley said. “Can’t wait to come back next year.”

Van Gisbergen feels the same way. Does NASCAR?

Custer awarded Loop 121 victory

Cole Custer could have paddled to the victory podium in a canoe, so inundated was the course when it was announced he was the winner of the lightning and rain-truncated Loop 121, the Xfinity Series race. He led all 25 laps in his Ford-decaled chassis, thus taking a 55-mile race, one of the shortest in NASCAR history.

”Definitely the wildest win I’ve been a part of,” said Custer of his 13th career Xfinity victory, second of the season, and 16th in NASCAR overall. “This is definitely not the way we wanted to get it. We want to run all the laps, and win it the proper way, but at the end of the day, we’re racers and we’ll take it any way it comes.”

With no canoe available, Custer walked to accept his trophy.

”I think we had a really fast car, arguably the best car,” he said. “It wasn’t like it was just given to us or pure luck.”

Only 14 of the 25 laps were under green-flag conditions, but Custer was fastest on nine of those 14.

John Hunter Nemechek was second, Justin Allgaier third. Thirty-five of the 38 started finished. With the race halted by the lightning-triggered red flag, where was no margin of victory. Estimate it at about four fathoms.

- Tim Cronin

What’s next for NASCAR after Chicago Street Race Weekend?

Saturday in the Park