Racing
League
Rugby
Cricket
Golf
Olympics
Football
Netball
Motorsport
Combat Sports
Basketball
Other Sports
Sport Nation
Full Noise by SN
The Live Sport Bible is here!Van Gisbergen angling for seventh road-course title
Reuters • May 9th, 2026 12:13 pm
Shane van Gisbergen is hoping for more Nascar success and his first win of the season at Watkins | Photo: AP
Shane van Gisbergen has work to do this weekend when the NASCAR Cup Series holds its second race on a road course in 2026, venturing to Watkins Glen International.
The former Supercars champion finds himself 19th in the standings this season, winless in his No.97 Chevrolet that he turns left and right for Trackhouse Racing.
It's the preponderance of right turns that have led to his success since he exploded onto the Cup scene with his stunning win at the Chicago Street Course on July 2, 2023.
The race ended with the lamp posts glowing alongside Michigan Avenue, nearly in darkness, and while van Gisbergen has not really been in the dark this season, the results have not been illuminating.
A native of Auckland, van Gisbergen will turn 37 on Saturday, and he would love nothing more than to repeat at the Glen and leap over a number of fellow winless drivers in the standings.
But it won't be gifted to him.
In 2025, driving the No.88, van Gisbergen beat Chris Buescher to win the Cup race in August. The day before, Connor Zilisch wrecked van Gisbergen and earned the checkers in the then-Xfinity Series race.
However, the 19-year-old Zilisch caught his foot in the window netting as he climbed from his car in Victory Lane and crashed hard to the ground, breaking his collarbone and requiring surgery but returned 13 days later at Daytona.
Van Gisbergen, whose six Cup victories have all come on road courses, warned this week more danger awaits in upstate New York, referring to a new barrier installed in Turn 5 at the famous Carousel.
"The way that wall is angled, it's going to grab cars and spit them out back into the middle of the track," said van Gisbergen, who is entered in all three series' races this weekend. "This setup, especially how close it gets to the racing line, feels like a trap."
In the season's only road-course race so far at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, he tried to chase down and pass leader Tyler Reddick but could not do it, only leading two laps while Reddick paced the way on 58 circuits en route to his third straight win to start 2026.
Van Gisbergen has posted only one other finish inside the top 10: a sixth at Atlanta the week before.
Not much has gone well in the last four races for him since running 11th at Martinsville last month: he has not finished better than his 17th-place effort last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, where Chase Elliott took the checkers.
